Russia invades Ukraine. Volume 2

[HappyMidget]

prand said:

Byker28i said:

MOD say the russians have got to the backstabbing stage

The subject of this, and language seems a bit odd and informal, and has a lot of fact based on inference. Is this a real release?

Yup https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activi...

[Gareth79]

prand said:

Byker28i said:

MOD say the russians have got to the backstabbing stage

The subject of this, and language seems a bit odd and informal, and has a lot of fact based on inference. Is this a real release?

Yes, they've been releasing those sorts of updates since before the invasion. Very plain-english and obviously based on all sorts of sources, but they've been pretty much bang-on correct, eg: https://twitter.com/DefenceHQ/status/1494313141660...

[BikeBikeBIke]

Gareth79 said:

prand said:

Byker28i said:

MOD say the russians have got to the backstabbing stage

The subject of this, and language seems a bit odd and informal, and has a lot of fact based on inference. Is this a real release?

Yes, they've been releasing those sorts of updates since before the invasion. Very plain-english and obviously based on all sorts of sources, but they've been pretty much bang-on correct, eg: https://twitter.com/DefenceHQ/status/1494313141660...

Well yeah, but on this occasion I think they have *way* overdone the inference.

[off_again]

prand said:

Byker28i said:

MOD say the russians have got to the backstabbing stage

The subject of this, and language seems a bit odd and informal, and has a lot of fact based on inference. Is this a real release?

Its the MOD and almost all Western intelligence organizations use specific words and terms that specifically mean something:

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

Words like likely and probable have very specific meanings and when you apply this to the MOD release, it does take on a lot more relevance.

[Johnnytheboy]

BikeBikeBIke said:

And increasingly it's possible to get the gist of a story from BBC or whatever, and then find an expert on Twitter for the detail and nuance.

I've posted it before but it makes me really angry that Putin had a brother who died.as a baby of starvation in the Siege of Leningrad and then Putin's woken up one morning in a peaceful and prosperous Europe and thought "More war and more seiges, I'll do some of that."

I often find myself saddened by nations or groups in society that are determined to define themselves as being 'not the other guy' even when it's to their own detriment.

All Russia needs to do is trade freely and fairly with the international community, and it would improve greatly as a nation.

And yet it seems crucial to Russia's self-image that they define themselves as "not the west". Then kicking off at the fact all their neighbours are aligning westwards.

[SpeckledJim]

off_again said:

prand said:

Byker28i said:

MOD say the russians have got to the backstabbing stage

The subject of this, and language seems a bit odd and informal, and has a lot of fact based on inference. Is this a real release?

Its the MOD and almost all Western intelligence organizations use specific words and terms that specifically mean something:

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

Words like likely and probable have very specific meanings and when you apply this to the MOD release, it does take on a lot more relevance.

I think these releases are as much for indirectly communicating with, and influencing, Putin and the Russian high-ups as they are for us muggles.

I enjoy them a lot.

[CrutyRammers]

BikeBikeBIke said:

I've posted it before but it makes me really angry that Putin had a brother who died.as a baby of starvation in the Siege of Leningrad and then Putin's woken up one morning in a peaceful and prosperous Europe and thought "More war and more seiges, I'll do some of that."

You did, but it's well worth repeating I think. Shows just what an absolute dickwad he is.

[speedy_thrills]

Johnnytheboy said:

All Russia needs to do is trade freely and fairly with the international community, and it would improve greatly as a nation.

And yet it seems crucial to Russia's self-image that they define themselves as "not the west". Then kicking off at the fact all their neighbours are aligning westwards.

That Vlad Vexler fellow commented that the question was unanswerable to Russians.

[off_again]

CrutyRammers said:

BikeBikeBIke said:

I've posted it before but it makes me really angry that Putin had a brother who died.as a baby of starvation in the Siege of Leningrad and then Putin's woken up one morning in a peaceful and prosperous Europe and thought "More war and more seiges, I'll do some of that."

You did, but it's well worth repeating I think. Shows just what an absolute dickwad he is.

I would go even further to point out that Putin has lined his own pockets to the tune of billions (if not up to a trillion). Has summer Dacha that cost $980m to build and is directly linked to at least one $700m super yacht - while millions struggle to survive in his country. And doesnt blink an eye to send those from the poorest regions of Russia to get ground up in the meat grinder of another war on the European continent. This is before I get to the Gini coefficient what would rate it as the 3 three most unequal and corrupt nations on earth.

Dickwad? I think we can safely call him a lot more than that - its just that PH will censor it.

And while I am on my soap box..... even after all of this, we still see posts on social media saying that because there are Nazi's in Ukraine, the whole of Ukraine is bad and some how funding them is somehow perpetrating Nazi's on the world.

[bloomen]

Since Russia is now saying the Black Sea export blockades will stay in place unless sanctions are reviewed, I wonder where regional grimness ends and global grimness begins.

Weirdly enough the countries that will suffer the most likely offer the most support to Russia. I wonder whether that'll last.

Sometimes the UN could do with being fully weaponised.

[vaud]

bloomen said:

Sometimes the UN could do with being fully weaponised.

Some UN peacekeeping operations in key corridors might be a way out of this... at least in the short term to de-escalate.

[PRTVR]

Russian aircraft shot down with English translation of the cockpit recordings.
https://youtu.be/TZYE4obfPto

[TTmonkey]

bloomen said:

Since Russia is now saying the Black Sea export blockades will stay in place unless sanctions are reviewed, I wonder where regional grimness ends and global grimness begins.

Weirdly enough the countries that will suffer the most likely offer the most support to Russia. I wonder whether that'll last.

Sometimes the UN could do with being fully weaponised.

Interesting interview on the news channel earlier with The prime minister of Sri Lanka.
They’ve already had a lot of unrest and things are looking very gloomy.
He was saying that it wasn’t just a case that they are not receiving the wheat they buy from Ukraine and Russia, he said the major issue was they had not received any of their normal deliveries of fertiliser this year. None.

So the local harvest, which is due in August, is going to exacerbate the issue of food shortages because the local yields will be heavily impacted.

Considering the issues the country already has this is going to be a disaster. He actually advised that foreign tourists should reconsider their travel plans to the country later in the season, as it is likely to be dangerous.

Madness, considering they have run out of foreign currency reserves too.

[BikeBikeBIke]

speedy_thrills said:

That Vlad Vexler fellow commented that the question was unanswerable to Russians.

Nothing to add except my gratitude to Vlad Vexler, he's brilliant.

[BikeBikeBIke]

bloomen said:

Since Russia is now saying the Black Sea export blockades will stay in place unless sanctions are reviewed, I wonder where regional grimness ends and global grimness begins.

Weirdly enough the countries that will suffer the most likely offer the most support to Russia. I wonder whether that'll last.

Sometimes the UN could do with being fully weaponised.

Threatening to starve people in Africa to attempt manipulate us is tacit acceptance that we are the good guys. Doesn't occur to him for a second that he could save Africans for starvation, He knows only the West would even consider it.

[off_again]

BikeBikeBIke said:

speedy_thrills said:

That Vlad Vexler fellow commented that the question was unanswerable to Russians.

Nothing to add except my gratitude to Vlad Vexler, he's brilliant.

Yup, agreed - watched that video the other day (he's got another one out now I think). Context is always important in these situations and he seems to add a lot of it around the way that Russians and Putin thinks - which is important.

Prerun also had a new video out the other day too - recommend checking his videos out on YouTube also.

[prand]

SpeckledJim said:

off_again said:

prand said:

Byker28i said:

MOD say the russians have got to the backstabbing stage

The subject of this, and language seems a bit odd and informal, and has a lot of fact based on inference. Is this a real release?

Its the MOD and almost all Western intelligence organizations use specific words and terms that specifically mean something:

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

Words like likely and probable have very specific meanings and when you apply this to the MOD release, it does take on a lot more relevance.

I think these releases are as much for indirectly communicating with, and influencing, Putin and the Russian high-ups as they are for us muggles.

I enjoy them a lot.

I do too, I just thought this one in particular was pretty informal in style (fired instead of relieved of duty or even sacked), plus writing about the general and admiral it almost in a tabloid way. I guess it is written with a specific audience in mind, but I had thought these were intelligence briefings, not for lowest common denominator consumption. Then again they are posted on Twitter and referenced on Radio 1 news, so perhaps that’s the point of them.

[bigandclever]

prand said:

pretty informal in style (fired instead of relieved of duty or even sacked),

For brevity they omitted “from a cannon”.

[rxe]

bloomen said:

Since Russia is now saying the Black Sea export blockades will stay in place unless sanctions are reviewed, I wonder where regional grimness ends and global grimness begins.

Weirdly enough the countries that will suffer the most likely offer the most support to Russia. I wonder whether that'll last.

Sometimes the UN could do with being fully weaponised.

The UN is a waste of space. The UN should be able to pass a resolution that allows other powers to ensure a safe sea channel. If (say) the US with UN backing said “ships are going to Odessa in order to avert a global crisis, if you mess with them, we, along with our allies will utterly destroy whatever caused the damage”, the Russians would crawl back into their corner.

The UN can bleat on with their silly rapporteurs, but they are enabling a global food crisis in the next year or so, and unable to do a blind thing about it. They should sell that building in New York for flats.

[take-good-care-of-the-forest-dewey]

Love the news stories today.. Like James Cameron flick.

Russia has deployed several of their terminator BMP-T units and separately they claim to have deployed a laser (in a 40watt range)

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-61508922

The chap even looks like arnie.