Russia Watch Thread

[wjfox]

[wjfox]

[raklian]

Not sure if the fighter jet is Ukrainian or Russian but it looks like it was damaged by anti-aircraft armaments and was trying to release unarmed missiles before crashing somewhere. (At least, that's what many people are saying in the comments).

[wjfox]

[raklian]

[Xyls]

This war is going to be super unpopular in Russia. If Russia doesn't achieve goals quickly then political instability will likely overwhelm Russia within 2 months imo, if the Ukrainians can prevent the fall of Kyiv for 2 months then Putin will lose the war and could see the collapse of his government.

[weatheriscool]

Russian conscripts being sent unprepared to Ukraine, says Russian human rights group
Source: Washington Post

BELGOROD, Russia — Russian conscripts are being forced into signing contracts and taken to serve in Ukraine amid a large-scale attack, human rights group the Committee of the Soldier’s Mothers told The Washington Post in an interview on Friday.

“Issue number one right now, eight out of 10 calls that we get are about the same question: ‘Is my child alive? Where is he?’" said Andrey Kurochkin, the organization’s deputy head.

Russia has mandatory one-year-long military service for all men under the age of 27. According to Russian regulations, conscripts can be sent to a combat zone no earlier than four months into their training. The Committee says it received a barrage of calls saying some conscripts barely served two months and are unprepared for the battlefield.

Kurochkin explains that, according to their mothers, some of the conscripts thought they were heading toward the Ukrainian border for drills, which is how Russia explained its massive buildup for weeks. “Then they are being told: now you are contractors,” he said. “And everyone’s phones are being taken away, while moms are crying and in panic.”

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/20 ... OJVMZ2ELMM

[weatheriscool]

Russian stock market closed for 4th day, Sberbank has lost 99.9% of its value.

https://tradingeconomics.com/russia/stock-market

The Bank of Russia kept stock trading at the Moscow Exchange suspended on Thursday, but said a limited range of operations will be available and that it would make a statement about future operations on Friday. Authorities suspended trading for a 4th straight day to keep Russian assets from sustaining sharp losses amid a series of harsh Western sanctions imposed against Moscow for the invasion of Ukraine. Meanwhile, the MSCI and FTSE Russell will cut Russian equities from widely-tracked indexes. Russian stocks listed abroad already suffered dramatic falls, with Russia’s largest lender, Sberbank, losing 99.9% of its value since the start of the year at the London Exchange after the bank pulled out of the European market. Meanwhile, the central bank has introduced a series of measures to stabilize its plummeting currency, including a more than double policy rate hike to 20% and a ban on a range of financial transactions that could negatively impact the ruble.

[weatheriscool]

A War the Kremlin Tried to Disguise Becomes a Hard Reality for Russians

SOCHI, Russia — On Feb. 23, Razil Malikov, a tank driver in the Russian army, called his family and said he would be home soon; his unit’s military drills in Crimea were just about wrapping up.

The next morning, Russia invaded Ukraine, and Malikov hasn’t been heard from since. On Monday, Ukraine published a video of a captured soldier in his unit, apologizing for taking part in the invasion.

“He had no idea they could send him to Ukraine,” Malikov’s brother, Rashid Allaberganov, said in a phone interview from the south-central Russian region of Bashkortostan. “Everyone is in a state of shock.”

The reality of war is dawning across Russia.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/war-kremlin- ... 08008.html

[wjfox]