Ukraine Russia War #12

[Sglodion]

So now are the protests in Russia. So Russians are only bothered by their mad dictator and their countrys war mongering now it starts to affect them directly?

Eh, I can't really blame them tbh. If the potential cost of protesting was at best getting 'disappeared' to a Russian prison for a while I'd keep my head down til my own life was in danger too.

 

[Yel]

Seems that nobody in Russia believes it's just 300,000 who are being mobilised. Everybody knows somebody who has been told to enlist.
They also don't believe the low Russian death figures they've been given are correct.
Source: a friend whose g/f is Russian. He is just back from a holiday in Turkey with her.

I heard on sky news they'd called up over a million and managed to get 260'000 to actually do it so far.

Seems like outside of Moscow and st Petersburg the chances of being called up is far far higher.

If they're all buying their own gear to take out as has been reported then they're going to be fucked in a couple of weeks when it gets down to freezing. Meanwhile western allies are giving hundreds of thousands of winter gear for the Ukrainian forces.

 

[saweetandsour]

I understand what you mean, because that was exactly how I felt when immediately after launching the already crazy invasion he started coming out with even crazier stuff about raising the nuclear threat level and WW3 - that he had literally gone insane and was hellbent on destroying the whole world including Russia just to make some kind of deranged point. People talking about MAD and that he'd only be blowing up himself/his own country didn't help at all. It got to the point where I had to start taking medication to stop myself having delusional thoughts about Russian planes flying over the UK right now to drop conventional explosives on us, when I knew that wasn't even logistically possible (obvs had some pre-existing mental health issues in this vein but never to that extent before).

I don't really know how to explain my relative lack of anxiety this time except to say that I no longer think he's completely insane in that way. Could be wrong of course, I can't prove it, but combined with thinking about all the stuff I said above it does help.

I also have a close friend who actually does have access to more information about things like this than the rest of us (sorry, I know that's a total mumsnetty 'my friend who works in the NHS says...' thing to say, but it's true haha), and while I obviously don't know any details they seem very unpanicked about the whole situation with Russia in general. So that helps calm my worries a lot too.

Thank you for your posts tonight, from someone like myself who was a daily/hourly panic poster on here back at the start of the invasion suffering with death phobia and OCD - this has been good to read

Seems we just can’t have a moment without bad news being spread over the media

 

[Ellelalala]

What a fucking mess that Russia is. Sad . Full of sad people too.

I won't lie, I feel terrible for the people living in that building. I know most Russians have been apathetic at best to the suffering of Ukrainians during this war, but I'm still sad to see the senseless loss of life.

 

[NeverEnough]

I wonder how many of their own people they have killed since WWII.

Ironically enough the worst casualties in the Stalin era we’re in Ukraine, where millions upon millions died of starvation during the attempt to impose collectivisation. Because of the strict controls on the press during that era we will probably never know the full extent. And whilst it is true that it wasn’t a deliberate planned policy of genocide like the Nazi’s, the refusal of the Communist Party to change course, even when the horrific results became apparent, amounts to the same thing. It was very similar to Cambodia’s Year Zero policy under the Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot.

Yep. Communism is a fuckin’ marvellous thing. (Final sentence may contain sarcasm).

 

[Yel]

I wonder what the next stage will be?

The air defenses will in by early Feb mitigating most of these attacks and the worst of the winter will be over. Putin is chucking more in for ever diminishing returns.

 

[IAlreadyDespiseYou]

I suspect this new commander probably has a period of time to try and get Russia back on top of things in Ukraine then it’s tactical nuclear attack time to basically try and break the Ukrainians.
Which then results in the west getting involved and reciprocal stuff happening and we are all screwed because Biden is a twat, Truss I wouldn’t trust with a toothpick let alone managing any kind of conflict and Europe can’t agree on anything.
And of course the U.K. isn’t ready for any kind of conflict here.
We are seriously thinking of leaving the U.K. we have family in South Africa, which had a host of its own issues but isn’t likely to be getting into a nuclear war with Putin any time soon. He hates the U.K., London may as well have a bullseye on Big Ben…

 

[Dollenganger]

Dear god, I see that people are just as hysterical as they were 6 months ago. Moving to South Africa where people sleep with guns under their pillows and live behind high security fences? I agree with @VC10.

 

[BigMavis]

Well I suspect we are about to hear a wonderfully convoluted tale involving some combination of crisis actors, green screen, and Ukrainian false flags, with Nazi’s, shadowing billionaires and media moguls thrown in. All generated through the posters “own research” and superior intellect, and not at all because they are Putin’s

Useful idiot - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Can I just say....birds aren't real.

 

[VC10]

Had an interesting chat with a resident on my estate. The family are Ukrainian and lived here long before the war.
The lady was very upset about it all and saying how they don’t talk to their Russian relatives anymore because people in Russia actually believe what the Kremlin are telling them. Despite them telling their relatives it’s lies.
She also said a lot of regular Russians actually do believe the Ukraine is part of Russia and doesn’t understand why the Ukrainians are fighting them.
I asked what if Putin is removed and she believes it wont change anything because Russians blame Ukraine for the state of their affairs ie economy tanking etc

It was very eye opening for me. I did ask if maybe Russians just believe because that is all the info they are getting and she said no. Enough of them have been told by friends and family in Ukraine what is going on and they don’t care or don’t want to be involved

All brainwashed. It runs deep.

 

[kittenattack]

Looks like the sabotage was by the Russians. Some Norwegian oil rigs are being buzzed by drones. No mystery who's behind this.

I'm glad Germany are fixed up with oil. I wouldn't have trusted them not to cave in tbh.

 

[VC10]

Google says 42 million, that can't be true, can it?

Yes, probably.

 

[Doctor_Wibble]

Yes, Russia is so very well equipped.

It's easy to get the impression that they don't fully realise what they are being sent into. I would hope with that gear they are just a home deployed group to temporarily replace soldiers (sentry duty and the like) who are being sent to the front line.

But it seems more likely these guys are being sent to make up the numbers and catch bullets which is just stupid and pointless and the Russian people should never forgive Putin for this.

 

[monga]

https://news.sky.com/story/ukraine-...-putin-over-brutal-needless-conflict-12702775Ukraine war: Joe Biden slams Vladimir Putin over 'brutal, needless' conflict

 

[Onetwofour]

In my city, they haven building a huge centre for Ukrainian refugees for months. The argument was when it started this spring that we have to be ready this fall/winter for a new wave of refugees because of the weather. I believe it even more now that it will happen as the Russians are targeting civilian energy infrastructures and terrorising the population with missiles and drones.

It's terrible to think of how many people will get out of this war traumatised and even if Ukraine wins, they will have to deal with the consequences of it on its population.

 

[monga]

 

[Yel]

Is it just me that's a little concerned that many of the world leaders apart from Putin and a few Putin sympathisers are in London

 

[FogOfWar]

“That’ll buff out, Vlad”

 

[Onetwofour]

I think it's alarming how everyone seems to be brushing off Ukraine attacking a NATO country and killing two Polish citizens as if it's just a 'little whoopsy, we all make them, these things happen in war'.... and yet only hours before most of the UK media was immediately blaming Russia and Volodymyr is calling for escalation, putting the blame on Russia too.

Like if we step back here for a minute, why on earth would it be in Russia's interests to attack a NATO member? Vladimir wants the Minsk agreement upheld, not WW3... ditto the CT about Russia attacking their own pipeline... what would be their motive for that?

I think the world is getting tired of this, so much money and so many deaths have been caused, (nevermind the economic, energy and food disruptions) and yet you have the president of Ukraine giving knee jerk reactions that could trigger NATO intervention and unwilling to start peace talks with the current president of the Russian fed (unless he has updated this idk).

Why are you making it like Ukraine wanted to attack Poland? There wouldn't be missiles flying around with an increasing risk of mistakes if Russia haven't had attacked Ukraine. Vladimir, as you say, broke the promise made by Russia to respect Ukraine's sovereignty and borders in the 90's. We don't need any country in Europe that feels like they can invade their neighbour when they feel like to.

Zelensky is no superhero and his reaction was wrong but what about the average Ukrainians? Do they deserve to be colonised by Russia? Putin denies the existence of Ukraine as a state - is that more acceptable to you? It was Russia that didn't want to let the grain leave the Ukrainian ports. Energy prices will stay high because most of European countries won't make again the mistake to be almost completely dependent of Russia. But that's just a reason for the increase of prices - Saudia Arabia and its friends will milk all the money they can from oil and gas and showed these last months that they will make sure to control the amount of fossil fuels available on the market whatever happens.

 

[FogOfWar]

Funny though - "once Russia have found their marks after their ranging shots, they can expect some accurate hits". Proper, modern armed forces don't need ranging shots, their shit works first time cf. the various Russian ammo dumps which had the arse blown out of them every night for the month of August, the bridge, the Moskva...