Ukraine War Watch Thread

[andmar74]

[andmar74]

[weatheriscool]

Zelensky chief of staff: Ukraine 'very disappointed' in NATO summit results
Source: The Hill

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, said Thursday the country has been let down by the emergency NATO summit in Brussels over the Russian invasion.

"We are very disappointed," Yermak said during a video call with the Atlantic Council, The Washington Post reported. "We expected more bravery. We expected some bold decisions."

Ukraine was hoping NATO would agree to a no-fly zone over Ukraine or supply the country with fighter jets, Yermak said, two moves that President Biden has explicitly ruled out as potentially drawing the U.S. into a bigger fight with Russia.

Read more: https://thehill.com/policy/internationa ... it-results

[funkervogt]

This is now 12 days old.

"I believe that we are probably about 10 days away from Russia culminating. In other words, running out of time, running out of people, and running out of ammunition."
@general_ben
tells
@LauraAJarrett
&
@ChristineRomans
that Russia does not have the manpower to take Kyiv.

[weatheriscool]

Russia reasserts right to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine
Source: The Guardian

The Kremlin again raised the spectre of the use of nuclear weapons in the war with Ukraine as Russian forces struggled to hold a key city in the south the country.

Dmitry Medvedev, a former Russian president who is deputy chairman of the country’s security council, said Moscow could strike against an enemy that only used conventional weapons while Vladimir Putin’s defence minster claimed nuclear “readiness” was a priority.

The comments on Saturday prompted Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, in an appearance by video link at Qatar’s Doha Forum to warn that Moscow was a direct threat to the world.
"Russia is deliberating bragging they can destroy with nuclear weapons, not only a certain country but the entire planet."

Russia has approximately 6,000 nuclear warheads – the largest stockpile of nuclear weapons in the world. In an interview on Saturday, Medvedev said Russia’s nuclear doctrine did not require an enemy state to use such weapons first.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/ ... 2a38f08d42

[weatheriscool]

Russia says first phase of Ukraine operation mostly complete, focus now on Donbass
Source: Reuters

Russia’s defence ministry said on Friday that the first phase of its military operation in Ukraine was mostly complete and that it would focus on completely “liberating” eastern Ukraine’s Donbass region.

The announcement appeared to indicate that Russia may be switching to more limited goals after running into fierce Ukrainian resistance in the first month of the war

Russian news agencies quoted the defence ministry as saying that Russian-backed separatists now controlled 93% of Ukraine’s Luhansk region and 54% of the Donetsk region - the two areas that jointly make up the Donbass.

The ministry said it did not rule out storming Ukrainian cities that had been blockaded and that Russia would react immediately to any attempt to close the airspace over Ukraine - something Kyiv has asked NATO to do, but NATO has resisted.

Read more: https://www.reuters.com/article/ukraine ... SL5N2VS459

[Xyls]

Russia says first phase of Ukraine operation mostly complete, focus now on Donbass

[andmar74]

[Yuli Ban]

[Xyls]

I usually disagree with Carl but on this matter he is correct:

[andmar74]

I usually disagree with Carl but on this matter he is correct:

It's absurd. Ukraine has not been a threat and is not a threat to Russia.

[caltrek]

Arguably, while Russia was never threatened, ethnic Russians, particularly in the eastern part of Ukraine, were threatened. Still, it is quite right to argue that disarmament by the Ukrainians would leave them vulnerable to further invasion. Russia severely overreacted in a way that was extremely disproportionate to the threat. So much so, that there are probably far more ethnic Russians killed or injured by the invasion than were ever threatened by the government of Ukraine.

Edit: Minot correction in grammar.

[weatheriscool]

U.S. confirms Ukraine struck Russian ship; Russian cruise missiles failing at rate of 20-60%
Source: CBS News

BY MARY WALSH, DAVID MARTIN
MARCH 25, 2022 / 4:36 PM / CBS NEWS

Russian cruise missiles suffer high failure rates

Russia is experiencing high cruise missile failure rates upon launch, ranging from "20% to 60%" a senior defense official said this week, citing U.S. assessments.

In many cases, the official noted, the air-launched cruise missiles simply don't release from the rails of the plane that is trying to fire them. Russian planes are currently flying about 300 sorties a day.

Further, Russian forces appear to be running lowest on air-launched cruise missiles and may be trying conserve those missiles, the official said. Though they still have about 50% of their stockpile remaining, the declining stocks of precision-guided missiles is a factor in the increasing use of dumb bombs. Russia's assault on Ukraine, now in its 30th day, has fired 1,260 missiles, according to the official.

Read more: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ukraine-ru ... pply-ship/

[weatheriscool]

Some Russian military units regrouping in Belarus amid losses: Ukraine
Source: The Hill

Ukrainian defense officials said on Sunday that some Russian military units have returned to Belarus through Chernobyl to regroup amid mounting losses as Moscow's invasion enters its fifth week.

In a statement on Saturday, General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (GSAFU) said an unspecified number of Russian forces have left Ukraine and crossed into Belarus. It added that the units could return to bolster attempts to encircle the capital Kyiv.

“Several units have been taken to the Chernobyl district with further relocation to the territory of the Republic of Belarus to hold measures for the restoration of armour," GSAFU said in its Facebook post.

Read more: https://thehill.com/policy/internationa ... mid-losses

[Maximus]

I usually disagree with Carl but on this matter he is correct:

Asking Ukraine to be neutral, and not join NATO is reasonable at this point. Asking them to disarm, in any way whatsoever, is completely unreasonable and a sign of Moscow's real intentions. Russia is negotiating in bad faith with such demands. They're not really negotiating for peace, but trying to set themselves up to finish their mission. For what purpose would you want to neuter Ukraine's military, when they have already said they will be neutral, other than to give yourself time to regroup and ensure your next invasion meets much less resistance?

If you think Ukraine would pose a threat to Russia, let me ask this: how many times has Russia been invaded by its neighbours in the modern era? Zero. How many times has Russia invaded its neighbours?

[Cyber_Rebel]

Disarming is not an option for Ukraine, especially when war crimes are being perpetuated against innocent civilians:





Russia is the one who needs unilateral demilitarization. An immature "culture" and society shouldn't have the right to threaten nor harm free and sovereign nations.

[raklian]

[erowind]

.

[Xyls]

Russia finally admitting defeat in the Battle of Kyiv. "Increasing trust in negotiations." Lol, don't make me laugh... Russia needs to drop the demilitarization demand as there is no sign of peace until that is dropped and the Donbass demands are dropped as well... Ukraine is never going to demilitarize after the behaviour of Russia over these last weeks and Zelenskyy would be a FOOL to agree to this demand.It would be better to cede Crimea than agree to this...

The failure to take Kyiv assures the survival of Ukrainian identity and state, whose destruction was the actual goal of Putin all along. Big fail.

Now it seems Russia is going pure land grab mode from Ukraine and is now trying to get Ukraine to concede territory to it as part of an ultimate peace settlement with no guarantee they won't pull this shit again in a few years time. I always said that this was going to devolve into Russia trying to annex the landbridge to Crimea, and my suspicions are largely confirmed with the brutality they have unleashed on Mariupol... Russia is now in the phase where they have to try to get some sort of favourable peace agreement for Putin quickly before the Ukrainian forces regroup and start to devastate them in the Kherson region...

It seems to me increasingly that some of the motivation behind this was probably to increase Russian population and land, due to failure to get birth rates significantly high as well as the huge losses of Russian people due to COVID-19. The thing is all the people he will be getting are again old, and he has killed and wounded a whole generation of young Russians which will further accelerate the decline of the Russian state/power as the West isolates this country for perhaps a quarter of a century or more...

[caltrek]

Ukraine-Russia Ceasefire Talks Yield Glimmers of Hope
by Cain Burdeau
March 29, 2022

https://www.courthousenews.com/ukraine- ... s-of-hope/

Introduction:

(Courthouse News) — Ukraine and Russia made progress on reaching a ceasefire and the outlines of a peace agreement on Tuesday with the Russian military saying it was “drastically reducing” its attacks on Kyiv and the areas surrounding the capital to build “mutual trust.”

While negotiations made headway in Istanbul, reservations and skepticism about a deal remained strong and fighting continued in some parts of Ukraine.

Still, both sides hailed the talks as constructive. Ukraine said it was willing to consider becoming a neutral state not aligned with NATO and Russia said it was not opposed to Ukraine joining the European Union. Ukraine also suggested it was ready to give up the Russian-held territories of Crimea and Donbas.

Any agreement, Kyiv said, would need to be covered by security guarantees to ensure that any future Russian attack could trigger a military response from those countries signing onto a prospective deal. The United States, China, France, the United Kingdom, Turkey, Canada, Italy, Poland and Israel are being cited as potential guarantors.

Russian delegates said the Kremlin was drastically reducing its offensive on Kyiv and surrounding areas, including the besieged city of Chernihiv, to strengthen “mutual trust” in the talks.