[Sérieux] Guerre en Ukraine

[Freezbee]

Et un autre de l'indispensable Guillaume Nicoulaud :

 

Citation

Guillaume Nicoulaud

La Russie de Poutine, vous le savez, dispose d’une armée considérable, d’un équipement pléthorique et d’armes de pointe. C’est du moins la conclusion à laquelle on arrive quand on écoute le Kremlin. Mais à quel point est-ce vrai ? #Thread

 

 

Un exemple intéressant, ce sont les missiles RSM-56 Bulava qui arment la dernière génération de SNLEs russes (la classe Borei, 6 bâtiments lancés). Manifestement, les essais ont été catastrophiques au point de pousser leur designer à la démission.

 

 

Et, si on en croit ce dernier, ce n’est pas la conception qui est en cause mais la qualité des matériaux, le manque d’équipement, le contrôle qualité et le fait qu’en 2009, l’industrie russe était incapable de produire 50 des composants du missile.

 

https://web.archive.org/web/20120314220804/http://www.news.az/articles/13270

 

Évidemment, on peut suspecter le type de plaider pro domo… Sauf que Sergei Kovalev, qui n’est rien de moins que le concepteur des SNLEs soviétiques de classes Typhoon (photo) et Delta, disait sensiblement la même chose en 2009.

 

 

Selon Kovalev, l’armée russe n’a pas eu suffisamment de fonds pour tester les trajectoires sous-marines des Bulava ni même des tirs depuis le sol et, lui aussi, critique la qualité des composants et l’absence de contrôle de l’armée dans les usines.

spacedaily.com/reports/Russia…

 

Et là, les amis, on parle de la fin des années 2000, c’est-à-dire *avant* les sanctions mises en place contre la Russie suite à l’invasion de la Crimée et du Donbass. Inutile de préciser que, depuis, il y a fort à parier que ça ne s’est pas arrangé.

 

Je ne vous apprendrais sans doute rien en rappelant que la Russie moderne est un cas d’école de la malédiction des ressources naturelles : en gros, ils vivent sur les produits de leur sous-sol (pétrole, gaz, métaux…) et importent pratiquement tout le reste.

 

Leur industrie, largement captée par les oligarques de l’époque Eltsine, est tout simplement incapable de produire bon nombre des composants high-tech qu’ils utilisent dans leur armement. Ils doivent les importer, notamment d’Europe de l’Ouest.

 

À ça s’ajoute la corruption légendaire de l’armée Russe. Hauts gradés qui semblent vivre très largement au-dessus de leurs moyens officiels, stocks de carburant qui s’évaporent… Tout leur complexe militaro-industriel est gangréné.
 

 

Russian military’s corruption quagmire Bogged down in Ukraine, Russian forces battle the consequences of systemic sleaze. https://www.politico.eu/article/russia-military-corruption-quagmire/

 

Ci-dessous, par exemple, la petite maisonnette que Sergei Shoigu (le ministre de la défense) s’est fait construire secrètement avec son salaire annuel de $120'000. On estime le machin à quelque chose comme $16 millions. Officiellement, c’est sa fille la propriétaire.

 

 

Aussi et sans même tenir compte de ce qui précède, il y a le simple fait qu’équiper et entretenir leur équipement pléthorique, ça coûte évidemment une blinde — ce qui, étant donné l’état de l’économie russe, n’est pas sans poser quelques problèmes.

 

En 2012, par exemple, le coût d’un missile Bulava était évalué à $32 millions et la presse russe notait qu’il ne cessait d’augmenter à cause (ô surprise !) de l’augmentation du coût de ses composants — comprenez : de la chute du rouble.
 

 

«Булава» закончилась - Газета.Ru Боевой запас ракет «Булава» для испытательных пусков израсходован, возможно, придется использовать ракеты, произведенные серийно для вооружения подлодок проекта «Борей», сообщают источники в оборонно-… https://www.gazeta.ru/politics/2012/08/10_a_4720661.shtml

 

Il est bien sûr très difficile d’actualiser ce chiffre mais on peut raisonnablement supposer que le coût des composants importés a au moins doublé depuis — ce qui, étant donné les sanctions qui pèsent sur la Russie n’a de toute façon pas d’importance.

 

Je termine par le coup de grâce : la fuite des cerveaux. Avant la petite « opération spéciale » de Poutine, elle était déjà alarmante. Depuis, elle est massive. La Russie se vide littéralement de ses compétences technologiques.
 

 

La fuite des cerveaux russes A quoi se mesure la grandeur d'un pays ? A ses statistiques, tout simplement. Et les statistiques officielles russes font froid dans le dos : diminution de la population, natalité en berne, émigration… https://www.franceinter.fr/emissions/geopolitique/geopolitique-05-mars-2019

 

Ce qui, c’est évident mais ça va mieux en le disant, n’est pas sans poser quelques difficultés quand vous prétendez développer, entretenir et (manifestement) utiliser des armes de pointe (et même des vieux machins hérités des soviets).

 

Et il va de soi que tous ces ingénieurs russes passent à l’Ouest — ce qui constitue a minima un transfert de compétences pour ne pas dire, s’agissant de type venu de l’industrie *militaire* russe, d’un transfert d’informations stratégiques.

 

Alors oui, sur le papier, la Russie dispose d’une grosse armée, d’un équipement pléthorique et d’armes de pointe qu’on nous agite régulièrement sous le nez, un peu comme un joueur de poker qui a très mauvaise main et se lance dans un gros bluff.

 

Reste que les éléments qui précèdent peuvent légitimement nous amener à nous demander si les SNLEs russes sont vraiment capables de tirer des Bulava, si ces derniers voleront et, si oui, s’ils atteindront leurs cibles et exploseront comme prévu.

 

À vrai dire, si j’étais commandant d’un desdits SNLEs, je crois sincèrement que je me serais déjà procuré un exemplaire de l’excellent « Octobre rouge » de Tom Clancy, en version originale histoire d’améliorer mon anglais. #Fin

 

Pardon, j'ai pas pu résister.

 

 

• • •

 

[Rübezahl]

il y a 6 minutes, Freezbee a dit :

Un fil sur les pneus des camions russes :

C'est pas un "vieux" thread recyclé ? de fin février ?

[Freezbee]

il y a 1 minute, Rübezahl a dit :

C'est pas un "vieux" thread recyclé ? de fin février ?

 

Je ne sais pas. Les tweets sont datés du 2 mai...

[Freezbee]

[Freezbee]

il y a 6 minutes, Rübezahl a dit :

C'est pas un "vieux" thread recyclé ? de fin février ?

 

Tu dois avoir raison, trouvé parmi les commentaires :

 

[Freezbee]

Une vidéo sur la présence russe à Kaliningrad :

 

 

[Rübezahl]

https://www.dailykos.com/tags/Ukraine 

dailykos semble un media hyper-prog/dems, mais leurs articles sur l'Ukraine sont plutôt pas mal, avec des détails techniques sur le coincement actuels des russes.

(... mais ça va se décoincer 😁).

[Freezbee]

Associated Press révèle que 600 personnes ont perdu la vie dans le bombardement du théâtre de Mariupol :

 

AP evidence points to 600 dead in Mariupol theater airstrike

 

Citation

LVIV, Ukraine (AP) — She stood in just her bathrobe in the freezing basement of the Mariupol theater, coated in white plaster dust shaken loose by the explosion. Her husband tugged at her to leave and begged her to cover her eyes.

 

But she couldn’t help it — Oksana Syomina looked. And to this day, she wishes she hadn’t. Bodies were strewn everywhere, including those of children. By the main exit, a little girl lay still on the floor.

 

Syomina had to step on the dead to escape the building that had served as the Ukrainian city’s main bomb shelter for more than a week. The wounded screamed, as did those trying to find loved ones. Syomina, her husband and about 30 others ran blindly toward the sea and up the shore for almost five miles (eight kilometers) without stopping, the theater in ruins behind them.

 

“All the people are still under the rubble, because the rubble is still there — no one dug them up,” Syomina said, weeping at the memory. “This is one big mass grave.”

 

 

Amid all the horrors that have unfolded in the war on Ukraine, the Russian bombing of the Donetsk Academic Regional Drama Theater in Mariupol on March 16 stands out as the single deadliest known attack against civilians to date. An Associated Press investigation has found evidence that the attack was in fact far deadlier than estimated, killing closer to 600 people inside and outside the building. That’s almost double the death toll cited so far, and many survivors put the number even higher.

 

The AP investigation recreated what happened inside the theater on that day from the accounts of 23 survivors, rescuers, and people intimately familiar with its new life as a bomb shelter. The AP also drew on two sets of floor plans of the theater, photos and video taken inside before, during and after that day and feedback from experts who reviewed the methodology.

 

Learn more about AP’s investigation:

• – AP Methodology: Calculating Mariupol theater airstrike dead

 

With communications severed, people coming and going constantly, and memories blurred by trauma, an exact toll is impossible to determine. The government estimated early on that about 300 people died and has since opened a war crimes investigation, according to a document obtained by the AP.

 

AP journalists arrived at a much higher number through the reconstruction of a 3D model of the building’s floorplan reviewed repeatedly by direct witnesses, most from within the theater, who described in detail where people were sheltering.

 

All the witnesses said at least 100 people were at a field kitchen just outside, and none survived. They also said the rooms and hallways inside the building were packed, with about one person for every 3 square meters of free space.

 

 

Many survivors estimated around 1,000 people were inside at the time of the airstrike, but the most anyone saw escape, including rescuers, was around 200. The survivors primarily left through the main exit or one side entrance; the other side and the back were crushed.

 

The AP investigation also refutes Russian claims that the theater was demolished by Ukrainian forces or served as a Ukrainian military base. None of the witnesses saw Ukrainian soldiers operating inside the building. And not one person doubted that the theater was destroyed in a Russian air attack aimed with precision at a civilian target everyone knew was the city’s largest bomb shelter, with children in it.

 

 

 

(AP Video/Marshall Ritzel)

 

James Gow, a professor of international security at King’s College London, said documenting what happened at the theater is critical to establishing a pattern of crimes against humanity in Ukraine.

 

“This strong witness testimony will be important in establishing that (Russian illegal) conduct was widespread or systematic,” said Gow, who also served as an expert witness at the U.N. International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.

 

Mariupol has taken on outsize importance as a symbol of the devastation inflicted by Russian forces and of the resistance from Ukraine. The city’s fate is now hanging in the balance, and officials say around 20,000 civilians died during the Russian siege. With Mariupol cut off from access, many fear the bombing of the theater presages more war crimes that have yet to be discovered.

 

The theater stands as the sun rises on June 27, 2019. (Lev Sandalov via AP)

 

___

 

The elegant theater had stood in a square in the heart of Mariupol for more than 60 years, a stone building with white pillars, a classical frieze, and a distinctive red roof. It was once called the Russian Dramatic Theater, but local authorities removed the word “Russian” from the name in 2015. Last July, they ordered all performances to be conducted in Ukrainian.

 

The Russian siege of Mariupol started in the first days of March. The actors, designers and administrators who ran the theater took refuge there a few days later, on March 5. About 60 people spread out in a building with an audience capacity of 600, according to Elena Bila, who was a stage manager there for 19 years.

 

The city soon ordered the entire building opened as a bomb shelter, given its size, its unusually sturdy walls and its large basement. On the first day, about 600 people showed up, Bila said.

 

Every day, more and more people came, and they settled in the corridors. A group of 16 men formed a security committee, taking shifts to guard the front doors.

 

“When people came in, they thought they were safe,” Bila said. “In fact, they weren’t safe.”

 

About a week before the bombing, the theater’s set designer used white paint to inscribe the word “CHILDREN” in Cyrillic letters on the pavement outside, in the hope of staving off an attack from above. The signs, painted in both the front and back entrances, were large enough to be read even from satellites.

 

 

On March 9, a Russian airstrike hit a maternity hospital just a few blocks away, and two or three pregnant women moved to the theater for safety, according to two theater employees. The women, along with families with small children, were given the most comfortable dressing rooms on the second floor, along a corridor behind the stage. It would turn out to be their doom.

 

By March 15, around 1,200 people crammed into the building, sleeping in offices, corridors, balconies, the basement. They lined the curved hallways and the warren of backstage offices and dressing rooms. They sat in the auditorium on once-plush seats whose stuffing was used as kindling for cooking fires.

 

But they avoided sleeping on the stage, which sat beneath a domed ceiling and felt uncomfortably like the bullseye it turned out to be. Only pets — cats and dogs — were kept there, directly under the dome. The cavernous basement prop room beneath it was empty.

 

By this time, the city no longer had electricity, food and water. The theater became a place where anyone could get food and water supplied by the Red Cross or news about possible evacuations. A water tank stood out front, and the field kitchen operated to one side.

 

People also flocked to the theater as the most likely starting point for any evacuations, to get near the front of the line. New arrivals registered at the entrance, where the cloakroom used to be. Just past the registration was what served as a warm welcome: A stand with hot tea.

 

Footage from inside the theater on March 8, 2022. (Azov Battalion via AP)

 

___

 

Among those who showed up in the hope of evacuating on the morning of March 16 were the Kutnyakov family and their neighbors.

Any hesitation they might have had about abandoning their home evaporated when the building next door caught fire.

 

The six of them ran past a Russian tank, past a hospital already destroyed by shelling, then inadvertently toward another Russian tank, whose turret turned in their direction and opened fire. They hid briefly in the ruins of the children’s clinic at the hospital. Then they ran down a side street for the final half-mile (kilometer) to the theater.

 

“We were immediately offered and poured tea,” said Galina Kutnyakova, the 56-year-old matriarch. “You have to imagine, we had hardly eaten or drunk for six days. Everyone was so happy because of the hot tea.”

 

Lunch was at noon, they were told, and in the meantime, they could find space.

 

The basement was full already. So were the first and second floors. They saw a spot on the third floor, near enormous windows that everyone knew would surely shatter into knives of flying glass if the building was hit.

 

Maria Kutnyakova poses for a photo at the Lviv Regional Academic Puppet Theater. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

 

Galina Kutnyakova poses for a photo at the Lviv Regional Academic Puppet Theater. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

 

It was the only place available, so they took it. They swept it up with a broom and laid out the sheets they’d grabbed from home. It was just before 10 a.m.

 

Maria Kutnyakova, Galina’s 30-year-old daughter, walked through the entire building in search of free space, noting the full rooms. She left her mother to handle the registration and went out by herself to find her uncle, who lived nearby. They hadn’t seen him in nine days.

 

That’s when she heard warplanes flying in from the sea and heading to the Azovstal steel plant. She walked a little further, and heard a single plane, much closer.

 

Then came the explosion. As she hugged the edge of the nearest building, she thought to herself, “So it exploded. Let it explode. I’ve heard a million bombs like that, and the bottom line is it didn’t hit me.”

 

But she saw smoke rising from the enormous park with the theater at the center. The theater stood bare, with a huge chunk of its red roof on the ground. The meter (three-foot) thick walls by the field kitchen had disintegrated to dust.

 

Her mind froze. Her mother and sister were inside.

 

 

___

 

The airstrike hit around 10 a.m., squarely on the stage and field kitchen.

 

Maria Radionova had laid out a corner for herself and her two dogs just underneath, in the hall of the drama theater with the chandelier. The roof caved in and the chandelier shattered.

 

Radionova wasn’t there. She had gone to stand on the steps at the entrance to the theater.

 

She heard the telltale whistle from a plane. A man grabbed her by the neck, pressed her against a wall and covered her. Debris and fragments of bricks flew at them.

 

The explosion threw another man back and face down onto glass. A wounded woman lay nearby in a huge pool of blood.

 

Radionova went back into the theater and tried to get into the hall. People were running and screaming, and lost children were frantically looking for their mothers. Radionova knew her dogs were dead.

 

“They were all I had,” she said, crying. “This (was) actually my family. … I cried there for probably two hours.”

 

 

Victoria Dubovytska, 24, had just folded blankets into a pile in the projection room where she was staying with her 2-year-old daughter, Anastasia, and 6-year-old son, Artem. When the bomb hit, they were thrown against the wall. The blankets tumbled on top of the toddler, shielding her small body from the slabs that fell next.

 

In the first seconds after the shock, the room was silent. Dubovytska feared her daughter was dead. Then Anastasia’s voice joined the other screams: “Mama!”

 

“I understood she was alive,” Dubovytska recalled. “I dragged her out….It was a miracle she survived.”

 

She took her son, her daughter and any documents she could find and ran out of the theater. Half of it had already crumbled.

 

As people fled the opposite way, Maria Kutnyakova ran into the hall looking for her mother and sister. She went to the third floor, but the windows were shattered and there was no sign of her loved ones or their belongings.

 

Read more:

• – 20 days in Mariupol: The team that documented city’s agony
• – Doctors, crater disprove Russia's hospital airstrike misinfo
• – 'Why? Why? Why?' Ukraine's Mariupol descends into despair

 

Hoarse shouts for family members filled the air. At first she too shouted “Mom,” but she quickly realized that everyone around her was shouting the same word. So she screamed the family name instead.

 

Someone answered, “Masha Kutnyakova!” With everyone shouting, she couldn’t figure out where the voice came from. It sounded like it came from somewhere in the ground, but only the dead lay there. She thought she was going crazy.

 

She went to the stairs down to the basement and bomb shelter. There, at the bottom, stood her sister, covered in plaster dust, with a cat. She had been on the third floor and fled to the basement for cover.

 

Their mother wasn’t upstairs but on the ground floor, near the medic’s office, and escaped out of a side exit. They made their way with a crowd of about 50 people to Mariupol’s Philharmonic, a nearby auditorium which was also serving as a shelter. That too came under shelling at sunset.

 

“I wasn’t killed in the theater, but I’m going to die in the philharmonic,” Maria Kutnyakova told herself bitterly. “God, this is my cultural program for the day.”

 

Dmitriy Yurin poses for a photo in Lviv, Ukraine. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

 

___

 

The shockwave from the explosion also reverberated outside the theater.

 

March 16 was Dmitriy Yurin’s 31st birthday. He was headed the 100 meters from his home to the theater, as he had done every morning in the past week, for food and water.

 

Near the entrance to the parking garage, the force of the blast knocked him to the ground. Yurin, a fisherman, picked himself up and ran to help, moving rubble to drag out those who were alive but couldn’t walk.

 

“I looked at my arms, and they were covered in blood up to the elbow,” he said. “And I was in a stupor, just shock.”

 

He left for about 20 minutes to collect himself and rub off some of the blood, then returned. Most of the bodies were unreachable deep in the foundations, which were now in flames. Anybody they could reach, rescuers moved to the park.

 

“Some of them weren’t alive, and some of them breathed their last on the street,” Yurin remembered, sighing. “We said goodbye to them.”

One young woman — maybe 25 years old — stood out in his memory. He stuttered as he recalled her face.

 

They laid her out on a bare winter flowerbed, still conscious. Two women and a child stood by her, trying to reassure her through their tears.

“We’ll live, don’t die, everything will be fine,” they said. “You’ll get help.”

 

But she died in front of him.

 

Yurin left soon after. He numbly pulled on a neoprene suit he used for fishing on cold winter days and wrapped his feet in plastic bags. Then he plunged into the Azov Sea and swam for nearly a kilometer (half-mile) “like a dog” before emerging outside Mariupol. It took days, but he eventually made his way to safety in western Ukraine.

 

Yulia Marukhnenko poses for a photo in the Dnipro Academic Drama & Comedy Theatre. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

 

Yulia Marukhnenko also had been renting an apartment near the theater. When she heard the bang, Marukhnenko first looked to the field kitchen, but she knew everybody there was buried. So she rushed to the basements.

 

Trained in first aid, with a full kit on hand, she was facing problems no first aid could begin to help: limbs attached to no bodies, bodies with no limbs, bones sticking out. Those were the ones who died, either on the spot or in the days afterwards in a city with almost no functioning hospitals. One woman had her leg amputated but died anyway.

 

Marukhnenko and the two police officers working alongside her said a dozen people were pulled from the rubble, the last one around 4 p.m., six hours after the airstrike. Her name was Nadia.

 

Still in shock, Nadia said the explosion pulled her young son and husband away, and they died in the basement. The woman cradled a dachshund that belonged to her son, who had named the puppy Gloria. Nadia begged her rescuers to take the dog.

 

She asked for a cigarette. She said she hadn’t smoked for seven months because her son had asked her to quit. But there was no longer anybody to quit for.

 

Nadia was taken to the hospital, and Marukhnenko doesn’t know what happened to her. The dog is with Marukhnenko still.

 

“If Nadia has survived, tell her that Gloria is fine,” Marukhnenko said. “She’s eating well, she’s all right, and she’s with me.”

 

A truck drives past the theatre on April 27, 2022. (AP Photo/Alexei Alexandrov)

 

Debris covers the inside of the theater April 4, 2022. (AP Photo/Alexei Alexandrov)

 

Debris covers the inside of the theater April 4, 2022. (AP Photo/Alexei Alexandrov)

 

 

Rubble from the damaged theater is seen on April 4, 2022. (AP Photo/Alexei Alexandrov)

 

___

 

The theater now lies in ruins, with its side and center blackened by fire. Russian forces control the neighborhood around it, and AP video shows heavy equipment swarming the rubble to further dismantle it. But the questions remain: How many bodies are there, and what happened to them?

 

A police officer who passed the theater a week after the airstrike said the smell of death was overpowering. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he still has relatives in Russia-controlled territory. Video taken by Russian state media shows no bodies inside, contrary to the descriptions of multiple witnesses.

 

The lack of bodies led the police officer and a Mariupol Red Cross official to speculate that perhaps fewer than 500 people died, but most survivors suggested the bodies were either pulverized into the dust or removed by the Russians. With the site off-limits to investigators and the rubble itself taken away, witness testimony and photos and video of the theater before and after it was bombed will be crucial, said Clint Williamson, who served as U.S. ambassador-at-large for war crimes issues from 2006 to 2009.

 

“Without being able to get to the scene, it is going to be difficult to go much beyond that,” he said.

 

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe has declared the attack on the Mariupol drama theater an “egregious violation” of international humanitarian law. The organization’s mid-April report found that “those who ordered or executed it committed a war crime.” It also found no dispute that the destruction of the theater was deliberate.

 

This finding was echoed by two munitions experts interviewed by the AP, who said the scope of the destruction points to a 500-kilogram bomb from a Russian warplane.

 

“It’s much too much for an artillery shell,” said Mark Cancian, an explosives analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a former artillery officer. “The fact that it hit square on would lead me to believe that’s what they were aiming at.”

 

Russian troops want to take over Mariupol because of its strategic value as a port and a link between territories in the south and east held by Russia-friendly forces. Moscow has declared victory, but Ukraine refuses to acknowledge defeat.

 

Actors work on a performance dedicated to the bombing of the theatre in Mariupol, Ukraine, at the Lviv Regional Academic Puppet Theater during a rehearsal in Lviv. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

 

In the meantime, families are desperate for any news of loved ones. A Telegram channel for Ukraine’s missing has more than 19,000 posts, with photos and other details. More than 9,600 refer to Mariupol alone.

 

The survivors from the theater attack remain haunted by their memories of what the Russians did.

 

“They came not to capture the city — they came to destroy it,” said Maria Kutnyakova, sitting in another auditorium in the city of Lviv where artists recently staged a show to honor Mariupol’s theater and those killed inside. “They are trying to hide how many people actually died in Mariupol, hide their crimes.”

 

[Freezbee]

Un fil sur les tortures employées par les Russes sur les prisonniers. Âmes sensibles s'abstenir.

 

 

Citation

 

Dmitri 🇺🇦

GRAPHIC! 🇺🇦 Intelligence Intercepted a call between a 🇷🇺invader Konstantin Solovyev (currently in Kharkiv oblast) with his mother revealing details of tortures Russian forces apply to Ukrainian captives. Mad stuff.

Translation attached, alternatively use the justpaste link the🧵

 

 

 

 

 

(18+) Russian torture of Ukrainian captives is carried out under FSB control. Link to the full text:

 

https://justpaste.it/3k7xz

 

Source:

 

 

More on their methods:

 

 

 

 

[Rübezahl]

Un bon thread sur la situation :

 https://nitter.net/Nrg8000/status/1522202434692870144

 

[Jesrad]

« La Russie peut-elle »

Non 

J’anticipe toujours que les Ukrainiens vont bouffer les Russes par les deux bouts (Izyum et Kherson) d’ici à fin Juin.

[Rübezahl]

Pour illustrer la miseyre coté russe :

https://nitter.net/PhillipsPOBrien/status/1522096892804481024

 

Ils ont beau tenter de renforcer leur dispositif ... ils piétinent complètement.

 

Le retournement est amorcé. On va bien voir comment les russes arrivent à le gérer.

Crossing fingers.

[Wayto]

Il y a 1 heure, Jesrad a dit :

J’anticipe toujours que les Ukrainiens vont bouffer les Russes par les deux bouts (Izyum et Kherson) d’ici à fin Juin.

Peter Zeihan pense / parie toujours sur une victoire Russe, façon Grozny à l'échelle du pays.

[Lameador]

Je prévois toujours personnellement une victoire russe de type "Finlande 1940". Coûteuse, brouillonne, sanglante mais durable.

 

Avec comme alternative peu réjouissante, le risque d'élargissement du conflit

[Ultimex]

il y a 1 minute, Lameador a dit :

Je prévois toujours personnellement une victoire russe de type "Finlande 1940".

Ou la Tchéchénie.

[PABerryer]

Ma grande crainte est que la Russie finisse par considérer que l'OTAN est en co belligérance et là pas glop

[Solomos]

Si c'est le moment des pronostics, je vais jouer aussi.

Les forces russes s'épuisent progressivement, l'Ukraine commence à reprendre du terrain. Poutine devient de plus en plus menaçant verbalement et puis pouf, un jour la télé russe annonce un deuil national, le président bien aimé est mort de sa terrible maladie mais au moins il a sauvé la Russie du nazisme et maintenant on peut arrêter l'opération militaire.

La Russie négocie un arrêt des sanctions, garde la Crimée qui devient une zone demilitarisée. L'Ukraine reprend le Donbass.

[Freezbee]

Il y a 1 heure, PABerryer a dit :

Ma grande crainte est que la Russie finisse par considérer que l'OTAN est en co belligérance et là pas glop

 

L'autre jour, j'ai écouté cinq minutes d'un discours de Poutine, et le mot OTAN revenait souvent (« ILS ne veulent pas d'une Russie libre et indépendante, blablabla »). Certains spéculent sur l'annonce d'une mobilisation générale le 9 mai, et on aurait dit qu'il préparait l'opinion à cette éventualité.

[Marlenus]

3 hours ago, PABerryer said:

Ma grande crainte est que la Russie finisse par considérer que l'OTAN est en co belligérance et là pas glop

J'avoue ne pas voir ce qu'ils ont à gagner à déclarer la guerre officiellement à l'OTAN.

 

Ils se doutent bien qu'ils ne gagnerons pas. Donc c'est un suicide, qui entrainera peut-être l'europe (mais sans doute pas les USA).

 

 

[Jesrad]

4 minutes ago, Marlenus said:

J'avoue ne pas voir ce qu'ils ont à gagner à déclarer la guerre officiellement à l'OTAN.

 

Ils se doutent bien qu'ils ne gagnerons pas. Donc c'est un suicide, qui entrainera peut-être l'europe (mais sans doute pas les USA).

Justement cela lui permettrait de perdre la guerre sans perdre la face. Au lieu de se faire ridiculiser par l’Ukraine, il se fait remettre en place par l’OTAN, et ça c’est moins embarrassant.

[Freezbee]

De source ukrainienne, la frégate russe Amiral Makarov aurait été touchée par un tir de missiles Neptune :

 

 

 

J'attends que les officiels russes confirment la nouvelle en mentionnant une avarie mineure sous contrôle...

[Freezbee]

[Marlenus]

42 minutes ago, Jesrad said:

Justement cela lui permettrait de perdre la guerre sans perdre la face. Au lieu de se faire ridiculiser par l’Ukraine, il se fait remettre en place par l’OTAN, et ça c’est moins embarrassant.

Non.

Il ne peut se permettre de perdre la guerre sans utiliser les nukes.

 

[Freezbee]

à l’instant, Marlenus a dit :

Non.

Il ne peut se permettre de perdre la guerre sans utiliser les nukes.

 

Rien n'empêche d'envisager un affrontement conventionnel avec la Russie (à condition de ne pas envahir leur territoire)...

[Marlenus]

12 minutes ago, Freezbee said:

 

Rien n'empêche d'envisager un affrontement conventionnel avec la Russie (à condition de ne pas envahir leur territoire)...

Tu peux envisager ce que tu veux.

Mais si ils doivent perdre, ils utiliserons les nukes.

[Freezbee]

À propos de mobilisation générale, un thread - assez long - de Kamil Galeev :

 

Citation

Kamil Galeev

Prediction

As May 9 is the major symbolic date for the Russian state cult of the "Great Victory", it also serves as a psychological benchmark for Z-war. Thus on May 9 Putin will feel pressure to declare either:

1. A tactical victory
2. A rapid escalation

Let's discuss both🧵

 

 

Why would Putin declare a tactical victory? Well, because he can't declare a strategic one. Russian people are not that stupid. What Putin could do is achieve some tactical success and present it as a major symbolic victory which would show that the war is going somewhat okayish

 

 

What could serve as a symbolic victory showing that Russia hadn't failed its invasion totally by May 9? Most probably, the capture of Mariupol. Siege of Mariupol has been going for two months but the Russians didn't crush the last pocket of resistance on the Azovstal steel plant

 

 

Mariupol had been bombed and attacked by pro-Russian forces for months with massive casualties. From the military standpoint it might make little sense: isolating this city and cutting its supply lines would be more reasonable. But it has a significant symbolic value

 

Mariupol is a large urban centre of the Russophone East Ukraine which Russians were supposed to "liberate". And yet, it turned into the centre of resistance. While resistance in Galicia is something Russian worldview would allow for, resistance in "Novorossiya" is unacceptable

 

The very fact that the Russophone troops from the East Ukraine do even resist is absolutely shocking for Kremlin. Furthermore, the two-months-long defence of Mariupol in an absolutely desperate situation made it a sort of Alcazar-like symbol, which should be crushed at any cost

 

While Russian propaganda focuses on the Azov participation in the defence of Mariupol, portraying them as Nazis, we should consider that for Russian propaganda a "Nazi" is first and foremost a racial or cultural traitor who could be Russian but refused to. "Nazi" = "вырусь"

 

 

Nazis = those who could Russify but chose not to. Look at the birthplace regions of the Azov commanders

Kharkiv is *the* centre (3). Three commanders r from there including the founder. Next are Kyiv and Poltava (2). Finally, Sumy and Luhansk (1)

Not a single one from the West

 

 

I'll cover the history of Azov later. For now I'll say that it debunks the Russian myth about "bad Nazi West" controlling "good Russian East" of Ukraine. In fact it is large Russophone cities of the East, especially Kharkiv, that are the main clusters of Ukrainian nationalism

 

 

While Russians portray Ukrainian nationalism as an essentially Western, Galician phenomenon, in fact Galicia provides more of a cultural standard than the actual leadership. Lviv would be more of a Tuscany of the Ukrainian national movement, while Kharkiv would be its Piedmont

 

 

This explains much of Russian anger against Ukrainian resisters. As Shahnazarov told:

"Z-letter opposers must understand they won't be spared". Instead they'll get "concentration camps, re-education, sterilisation"

Notice there's no talk of "Nazis", only of "Z-letter opposers"

 

Journalist Olshansky suggests publicly hanging Azov defenders of Mariupol while making local civilians to watch. And leave them hang for awhile as a horrifying reminder of who's a master here

Russian propagandists lowkey admit that Russian rule can be imposed only through terror

 

 

That's a Moscow journalist Dmitry Olshansky who calls for public executions while making civilians to watch in order to establish dominance. He isn't some lunatic but rather a member of hereditary cultural establishment of Moscow and a strong advocate for the war with Ukraine

 

 

There is a strong indication that Putin will try to capture Azovstal by May 9. Why? Because he claimed otherwise. On April 21 he publicly told to Shoigu that soldiers "shouldn't descend into the catacombs" and lose lives. Which means he *will* send them into the catacombs

 

 

Azovstal tunnels & bunkers were built in the Soviet era when the prospect of a nuclear war looked imminent. They were designed in a way to survive a nuclear strike. (That's why they became a safe heaven for civilians). Those trying to capture Azovstal will suffer heavy casualties

 

 

Why Putin is so comfortable with losing men who must go into the Azovstal catacombs and die there en masse? Well, cuz he won't send Russians there. He'll send Ukrainians. I strongly suspect that most of Russian casualties in Z-war were not Russians but forcibly drafted Ukrainians

 

 

Have you ever considered how pro-Russian Donetsk and Luhansk "People's Republics" recruited their troops? Their armies went through three stages of development:

1. Volunteers
2. Mercenaries
3. Total mobilisation

Now we are on a stage 3. Every male up to 55-60 is a cannon fodder

 

 

Initially pro-Russian forces in Donbass were comprised from volunteers. Some of them were Russian nationalists or adventurists. Others were members of local administrations and law enforcement. Third were real local volunteers. All were led by a Russian FSB colonel Strelkov

 

 

With the war going on, DPR and LPR soon ran out of volunteers. Fortunately, in a war-devastated Donbass they could hire fighters cheaply. Where did they take the cash to pay them? Well, Russian gave it. Russians subsidised DPR and LPR puppets to keep the Donbass war going on

 

 

Russian subsidies allowed to pay a 25 000 rubles salary to everyone who enlisted to fight against Ukraine. In a war-torn Donbass that was often the only job available. Since these people enlisted for cash they were mocked as twenty-five-thousanders referring to their low morale

 

 

And yet, a mercenary army of twenty-five-thousanders wasn't good enough. First, it's still costly. Why pay anything when you can pay nothing? Besides, with the high casualties they soon ran out of mercenaries, too. Since 2015 they started experimenting with forced mobilisation

 

 

At this point pro-Russian DPR and LPR authorities are forcing anyone under 55-60 into the army and sending them into the frontline assaults to the heavily fortified Ukrainian positions. Of course, they are being massacred. Listen to Strelkov who started it all

 

That's how the Donetsk and Luhansk armies look like. Notice their equipment, helmets for example. Russians forced these Ukrainian nationals into their puppets' armies, gave them whatever garbage remained from the Soviet stocks and sent them to die

 

 

In Vkontakte they discuss mobilised DPR soldiers in Mariupol with obsolete equipment like Mosinka guns originally based on 1891 design and not used in the army since the 1950s:

"I very much hope they are not being sent forward as meat in the first line"

Well, of course they are

 

 

"Fucking shame, they recruited them as meat, thanks for not giving them forks to fight. They gave them helmets of 1941. You couldn't make up a better anti-ad"

"It's sad when the entire company has Mosinkas"

"That's a shame"

"After a month they could've brought some equipment"

 

 

"Nazis are being supplied by half a Europe and the US and these guys are fighting with Mosinkas"

"I feel bed for these men. They never fought, don't know anything. They're common workers from a coals mine and they don't even have ammunitions. Damn. Why did they send them there?"

 

 

They're literally crowfonding the basic equipment for the forcibly mobilised DPR and LPR soldiers. Here for example they managed to crowdfund 3600 rubles to buy them shovels. Notice the reactions of gratitude below the post

 

 

Russian volunteer who served in the LPR army but then deserted and made it back to Russia is describing "the literal utilisation of the LPR male population"

Forcibly mobilised Ukrainians nationals are being sent to attack Ukrainian positions "naked" without even the body armour

 

 

As the Donbass war has been going since 2014, Ukrainians had time to build very thorough fortifications. Notice how a Russian TV correspondent is describing an abandoned Ukrainian position. Why would he need to show that? Well, to show why Russian advance goes slower than planned

 

Watch these mobilised Ukrainian nationals from the Donbass who are being press-ganged into the army by Russians and sent into the frontal assaults as the cannon fodder. This gives some context to how the male population of Donbass is being "recycled" (утилизировать) in Z-war

 

That's how a mobilisation is proceeding in the Donetsk People's Republic. Males 18-60 can't show up on the street because they will be press ganged immediately. Some hide at home. Others live at their jobs and never leave the building. If you show up outside, you'll be recycled

 

 

In Donetsk and Luhansk they are literally catching people on streets and press-ganging them into the army. That's very advantageous. Recycling Ukrainian nationals in a war against Ukraine allows to keep Russian official casualty numbers law. Very smart decision

 

 

Let me give you an example. A famous pianist from Donetsk was killed in action near Mariupol in April. How did he even get to the army? He was press-ganged and according to the unconfirmed info from the social media, press-ganged by a trick

 

 

"Philharmonie was cheated!!! they were told to come to "record a nice video, and then go back home... but instead they were all taken in an unknown direction!!"

"We were told the same, they cheated us too. Opera, circus. Donbass"

"He was not a volunteer!!! Like all musicians!

 

 

On February 28 Pushilin of the Donetsk People's Republics declared they're stopping the mobilisation. That didn't happen ofc, instead they accelerated it, launching a total mobilisation. Ukrainian nationals are too convenient cannon fodder for Russia

 

 

Some argue that Russians might be doing the same on newly occupied territories. It may be easy to do. Organise a "council" that will ask to join the DPR or LPR. Then launch total mobilisation. That is a "council" in Rozovskii District of Zaporizhzhia Oblast asking to join the DPR

 

 

Russian forces are composed of at least three separate structures: Russian regulars, Chechens and the Donbass armies. Whereas Chechens PR the hardest of all, it is the forcibly mobilised Ukrainian nationals from Donbass who likely suffer the most casualties. They are expendable

 

 

With the war going on, Russian leadership will be incentivise to scale up Donbass political and socioeconomic model of total mobilisation and impose it all over Russia (North Korea scenario). And yet, there are some problems which make it harder to execute

 

Why is forcibly mobilised cannon fodder from Donbass so docile? Well, because they can't really do anything. And why can't they? Because they are too far from Russian centers of political power. Should they rebel, they will be crushed by the far better equipped Russian army

 

Russian regulars will easily suppress any discontent of those conscripts, while those who give orders to those regulars are simply beyond their reach. And why are they beyond their reach? Because they are far away

 

 

There might be lots of discontent among the Donbass mobilised. But this discontent presents no danger because they are concentrated too far away from the Russian centres of political power. And vice versa, if any substantial mass mobilised force is quartered nearby, that's a risk

 

Moscow is by far the most important transport hub in Russia. Pretty much all of long distance auto-, air- and most importantly railway routes from south to north, from west to east, etc necessarily have to pass through this city. There are few options to bypass it

 

 

In case of total mobilisation with a military doctrine that doesn't include an option of total mobilisation and with an infrastructure for total mobilisation dismantled, we'll almost inevitably see a huge concentration of conscripts stuck in Moscow on their way to Ukraine

 

Total mobilisation presents a political rise not so much because of discontent it creates, as because of possible overconcentration of unmotivated armed people with immediate self-interest in overthrowing regime in immediate proximity to the seat of political power

 

 

In other words, total mobilisation presents a significant risk for the regime because the flows of the mobilised will necessarily have to go through Moscow and many will be stuck there for a long time. That's why launching it all over the country would be dumb

 

 

And yet, if mobilisation is declared only in regions immediately bordering Ukraine, such as Bryansk, Kursk, Belgorod, Voronezh and Rostov, then cannon fodder flows don't have to pass through Moscow, thus reducing revolutionary risks dramatically. End of 🧵

 

• • •

 

 

TLDR

 

Citation

Russian forces are composed of at least three separate structures: Russian regulars, Chechens and the Donbass armies. Whereas Chechens PR the hardest of all, it is the forcibly mobilised Ukrainian nationals from Donbass who likely suffer the most casualties. They are expendable

 

 

With the war going on, Russian leadership will be incentivise to scale up Donbass political and socioeconomic model of total mobilisation and impose it all over Russia (North Korea scenario). And yet, there are some problems which make it harder to execute

 

Why is forcibly mobilised cannon fodder from Donbass so docile? Well, because they can't really do anything. And why can't they? Because they are too far from Russian centers of political power. Should they rebel, they will be crushed by the far better equipped Russian army

 

Russian regulars will easily suppress any discontent of those conscripts, while those who give orders to those regulars are simply beyond their reach. And why are they beyond their reach? Because they are far away

 

 

There might be lots of discontent among the Donbass mobilised. But this discontent presents no danger because they are concentrated too far away from the Russian centres of political power. And vice versa, if any substantial mass mobilised force is quartered nearby, that's a risk

 

Moscow is by far the most important transport hub in Russia. Pretty much all of long distance auto-, air- and most importantly railway routes from south to north, from west to east, etc necessarily have to pass through this city. There are few options to bypass it

 

 

In case of total mobilisation with a military doctrine that doesn't include an option of total mobilisation and with an infrastructure for total mobilisation dismantled, we'll almost inevitably see a huge concentration of conscripts stuck in Moscow on their way to Ukraine

 

Total mobilisation presents a political rise not so much because of discontent it creates, as because of possible overconcentration of unmotivated armed people with immediate self-interest in overthrowing regime in immediate proximity to the seat of political power

 

 

In other words, total mobilisation presents a significant risk for the regime because the flows of the mobilised will necessarily have to go through Moscow and many will be stuck there for a long time. That's why launching it all over the country would be dumb

 

 

And yet, if mobilisation is declared only in regions immediately bordering Ukraine, such as Bryansk, Kursk, Belgorod, Voronezh and Rostov, then cannon fodder flows don't have to pass through Moscow, thus reducing revolutionary risks dramatically. End of 🧵

 

 

[Freezbee]

Ça se précise...

 

 

https://liveuamap.com/en/2022/6-may-admiral-grigorovichclass-frigate-of-the-russian-navy

[Freezbee]

 

Citation

⚡️Il y a de nouvelles informations sur une autre mésaventure de la flotte russe près de nos côtes.

🛳 Des sources russes non officielles rapportent que des problèmes ont touché la dernière frégate à missiles, l'Amiral Makarov.

🚀 L'Amiral Makarov a été mis en service en 2017. Il est doté de capacités de défense aérienne de pointe et armé de missiles de croisière Kalibr. C'était.

💥La frégate n'a pas réussi à esquiver un missile antinavire ukrainien Neptune, selon les informations préliminaires. Le navire est gravement endommagé mais reste à flot. Pour l'instant.

En attente.

 

Traduit avec www.DeepL.com/Translator (version gratuite)

 

[Ultimex]

Il y a 9 heures, Freezbee a dit :

ANG : Air National Guard ou branche aérienne de la Garde Nationale.

Pour rappel : Garde Nationale = +/- Armée de réserve US, une par État US (ex : il y a une Garde Nationale du Texas, de l'Ohio, etc.), chargée de défendre l'Etat en question en cas d'invasion (ou de gérer des situations de crise sur son territoire). 

Bref, sauf erreur, l'ANG n'est pas censée intervenir à l'étranger->info douteuse, source probablement à jeter à la poubelle.

Note : d'après wiki, il peut y avoir des situations où l'ANG se retrouve "fédéralisée" mais son domaine d'action semble rester limité au territoire national dans ce cas.

[Freezbee]

il y a 1 minute, Ultimex a dit :

ANG : Air National Guard ou branche aérienne de la Garde Nationale.

Pour rappel : Garde Nationale = +/- Armée de réserve US, une par État US (ex : il y a une Garde Nationale du Texas, de l'Ohio, etc.), chargée de défendre l'Etat en question en cas d'invasion (ou de gérer des situations de crise sur son territoire). 

Bref, sauf erreur, l'ANG n'est pas censée intervenir à l'étranger->info douteuse, source probablement à jeter à la poubelle.

Note : d'après wiki, il peut y avoir des situations où l'ANG se retrouve "fédéralisée" mais son domaine d'action semble rester limité au territoire national dans ce cas.

 

Ils peuvent tout à fait participer à des exercices à l'étranger. En fait, c'est prévu :

 

Latvia to host massive military exercises with US participating

 

Citation

It is planned for approximately 2 800 troops and National Guard from Latvia and the US to participate. Allied forces from countries part of NATO enhanced Forward Presence – Canada, Albania, Czech Republic, Italy, Iceland, Montenegro, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia and Spain – will also participate. More than 300 units of land and air military vehicles may be used as well.

 

At the end of May and start of June it is planned to hold the Astral Knight military exercises, which will focus on air force operations.