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Ukraine 21: On the Attack with a Giant Phallic Spear


DireWolfSpirit

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Rumours abounding that Snihurivka has been liberated (or at least, deserted by Russia) - but so far no actual confirmation / geolocated pictures.

If true, that's huge - it's massively defended by Russia, and opens up a highway straight to Kherson, to the West of the Inhulets.
It's currently a big "IF" though -this one has been rumoured several times, and proven false, with the source generally traced back to pro-Russia channels, presumably in an attempt to suck Ukrainians into a trap.
Here's a report / retelling of rumour - the more cautious sources I follow have either refused to retell it, of have done so, and subsequently deleted.

 

 

ETA: Looks like the original source this time was Russians on Telegram, so... maybe Russians panicking and running away, unlikely Ukrainian liberation (yet), most likely lies. (Have removed the report)

 

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Is it even possible for the Ukrainian military and govt to be fooled into believing that Russia has run away from a town/city when they still remain firmly in place? Does someone thing the Ukrainian army will simply stroll into town and be taken unawares simply because social media said the place was there for the taking?

Maybe ordinary civilians might be fooled, but what are they going to do?

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23 hours ago, kiko said:

I learned yesterday that he didn't give anything. The US government paid for Starlink. Like every Musk venture, he claims the kudos and dollars while the tax payer is left with the bill.

To be accurate:  SpaceX donated 66% of the initial 5000 terminals shipped to Ukraine, the U.S. government paid for the other third, plus transportation on military cargo aircraft.  An additional 10,000 terminals were sent in June, bringing the ratio to 89% SpaceX to 11% U.S. funded.   SpaceX also waived the monthly operating costs for using them for all Ukrainians.  U.S. expense was about $10M, SpaceX cost $80M so far and counting. 

Why 89% and not all?  I'm speculating but the 11% most probably went to Ukrainian government users (including municipalities in the warzone), which SpaceX could not simply give without tripping over rules against companies donating to foreign governments because that would look like a bribe.

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4 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

Is it even possible for the Ukrainian military and govt to be fooled into believing that Russia has run away from a town/city when they still remain firmly in place? Does someone thing the Ukrainian army will simply stroll into town and be taken unawares simply because social media said the place was there for the taking?

Maybe ordinary civilians might be fooled, but what are they going to do?

Probably not - as they've access to drones, NATO satellites, and a very large number of civilians with mobile phones.

But the Russians?... they'd probably walk straight into such a trap themselves, and may well not have realised that Ukraine tends not to.

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2 hours ago, SpaceChampion said:

To be accurate:  SpaceX donated 66% of the initial 5000 terminals shipped to Ukraine, the U.S. government paid for the other third, plus transportation on military cargo aircraft.  An additional 10,000 terminals were sent in June, bringing the ratio to 89% SpaceX to 11% U.S. funded.   SpaceX also waived the monthly operating costs for using them for all Ukrainians.  U.S. expense was about $10M, SpaceX cost $80M so far and counting. 

Why 89% and not all?  I'm speculating but the 11% most probably went to Ukrainian government users (including municipalities in the warzone), which SpaceX could not simply give without tripping over rules against companies donating to foreign governments because that would look like a bribe.

Thanks!

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I think the occupied area West of Dnipro (Kherson etc) is absolutely strategic and most important for Ukraine to regain. Screw the Donbas with its coal and Homo sovieticus population. Russian forces West of the river are like rapist's foot in the door, must be chopped off. Not that it is original thought at all, but I just feel great relief seeing it happens now, before the winter. 

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5 hours ago, broken one said:

I think the occupied area West of Dnipro (Kherson etc) is absolutely strategic and most important for Ukraine to regain. Screw the Donbas with its coal and Homo sovieticus population. Russian forces West of the river are like rapist's foot in the door, must be chopped off. Not that it is original thought at all, but I just feel great relief seeing it happens now, before the winter. 

The Donbas is important to Ukraine's economy with its heavy industry, and also the overwhelming majority of the population outside of the LPR and DPR-claimed territories (and probably elsewhere) do not want to be part of Russia.

I agree that Kherson is a priority, but so is Donbas, and of course Ukraine's current attitude of, "Why not both?" seems to be working out.

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13 minutes ago, Werthead said:

The Donbas is important to Ukraine's economy with its heavy industry, and also the overwhelming majority of the population outside of the LPR and DPR-claimed territories (and probably elsewhere) do not want to be part of Russia.

I agree that Kherson is a priority, but so is Donbas, and of course Ukraine's current attitude of, "Why not both?" seems to be working out.

Why not both also forces the Russians to split their limited manpower and resources between the two locales allowing Ukrainian forces to have serious numerical superiority over the Russians.  :) 

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56 minutes ago, Werthead said:

 

I agree that Kherson is a priority, but so is Donbas, and of course Ukraine's current attitude of, "Why not both?" seems to be working out.

Access to sea shore and as many ports as possibile is crucial too, I just have considered cleaning western side of Dnipro absolute minimum to achieve (like more secure position in context of potential UA-RU confrontations in the future), even if all the rest would fail. Now it seems much more is possibile, but I was looking forward to this especially.

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Interesting article from ISW on the Russian Information Space:

Quote

Putin relies on controlling the information space in Russia to safeguard his regime much more than on the kind of massive oppression apparatus the Soviet Union used, making disorder in the information space potentially even more dangerous to Putin than it was to the Soviets. Putin has never rebuilt the internal repression apparatus the Soviets had in the KGB, Interior Ministry forces, and Red Army to the scale required to crush domestic opposition by force. Putin has not until recently even imposed the kinds of extreme censorship that characterized the Soviet state. Russians have long had nearly free access to the internet, social media, and virtual private networks (VPNs), and Putin has notably refrained from blocking Telegram even though the platform refused his demands to censor its content and even as he has disrupted his people’s access to other platforms. The Russian information space has instead relied on journalists and TV talk-show guests to enforce coerced self-censorship...

Russians get their news about the war primarily from two places.  Average, mostly apolitical, Russians get it from the main propaganda news.  More pro-war and engaged Russians seek out Russian milbloggers.  Putin has largely tolerated these milbloggers thus far because they are nationalists, pro-war and generally pro-Putin.  But they do report military failures and increasingly are angry and seeking someone to blame (like General Lapin).  In the face of recent setbacks, the milbloggers have been increasingly appearing on mainstream Russian propaganda TV.  This is allowing them to have more influence on the regular Russian public, and increasingly shining a light on recent military failures.  This is a problem for Putin, as he doesn't want to risk the carefully manicured message of TV propaganda, but he also doesn't want to piss off the Russian milblogger community, which is both influential and generally (thus far anyway) pro-Putin. 

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32 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

Interesting article from ISW on the Russian Information Space:

Russians get their news about the war primarily from two places.  Average, mostly apolitical, Russians get it from the main propaganda news.  More pro-war and engaged Russians seek out Russian milbloggers.  Putin has largely tolerated these milbloggers thus far because they are nationalists, pro-war and generally pro-Putin.  But they do report military failures and increasingly are angry and seeking someone to blame (like General Lapin).  In the face of recent setbacks, the milbloggers have been increasingly appearing on mainstream Russian propaganda TV.  This is allowing them to have more influence on the regular Russian public, and increasingly shining a light on recent military failures.  This is a problem for Putin, as he doesn't want to risk the carefully manicured message of TV propaganda, but he also doesn't want to piss off the Russian milblogger community, which is both influential and generally (thus far anyway) pro-Putin. 

Have them all arrested and replaced with men loyal to Putin. 

Jeezus, this guy can't even communist right. What, exactly, is comrade Putin bringing to the table at this point besides Robert Kraft's Superbowl ring?

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Conflicting views of recent (post soviet) history on whether a majority of the people of the Donbas region do or don't want to secede from Ukraine (with or without confederating with Russia). There are those who say most of these people always saw themselves as Russian and have wanted to go back to the motherland for quite a while. And if Ukraine and the international community had accepted and facilitated it this war would not be happening.

But then these same people often also cite US (and friends) goading of Russia over many years to keep it off balance and limit it to only being a regional power not a global power, and using Ukraine as an irritant, as provocation that eventually got to enough of an annoyance that Russia decided to scratch that itch.

Being that US (and friends) foreign policy strategy is always much broader than the fate of some border regions of a country that they don't actually care about except to the extent it can be used as a tool to advance US foreign policy interests. It seems likely that even had the Donbas gained independence Russia would have found a pretext to invade Ukraine, or some other border state that was being a bit uppity towards Russia and really should have always been within the loving embrace of the Great Bear.

I am not well enough read to really conclude what I think is true. And I suspect objective truth is difficult to establish. But it seems a bit too simplistic to say that there would be no war if only Russia was handed the Donbas back in 2014.

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There was a vote in 1991 on joining Ukraine or remaining part of Russia, and every part of Ukraine voted to join.  Crimea was only like 52 percent, but that's still more than Brexit got, and that was the lowest vote anywhere.  Donbas was like 70 percent, and most of the rest was way higher.

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4 hours ago, Maithanet said:

There was a vote in 1991 on joining Ukraine or remaining part of Russia, and every part of Ukraine voted to join.  Crimea was only like 52 percent, but that's still more than Brexit got, and that was the lowest vote anywhere.  Donbas was like 70 percent, and most of the rest was way higher.

It wasn't about "leaving Russia." These territories had been part of Ukraine all along. It was about independence from the Soviet Union, of which Russia pretends to be the successor, but isn't.

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