Will Putin Invade Ukraine?

[Hydra009]

Ukraine utterly annihilates Russian radar and electronic warfare system near Bakhmut with HIMARS

That headline might sound over the top, but pictures say a thousand words and this photo says 'completely destroyed' in a thousand languages.

The statement from Ukrainian forces is...ominous:

"The fire destroyed enemy vehicles and almost all enemy manpower. Few managed to survive, but not for long...

Yikes.  Not going to get a prisoner exchange out of that one.

[Hydra009]

[Cassia]

There is a bit of Nazi-related history about how the Wagner group got its name. I never did care much for Wagner's music, being the antisemite that he was.

[Dark Lightning]

I wondered about the current Wagner, but didn't bother to check it out. They're supposedly fighting "NAZIs". I've always found it better to just tell the truth instead of making shit up likes these people do. It saves a lot of embarrassment, later.

[Hydra009]

Among Russian President Vladimir Putin's many fantastical pretexts for invading Ukraine, the urgent need for its "denazification" may be the most preposterous. Ukraine isn't free of domestic extremists, but Putin's claims are pure disinformation. In fact, the Russian strongman has been supporting neo-Nazis and white supremacists for years, including mercenaries and separatists who have waged war on Ukraine since 2014.

Putin isn't fighting neo-Nazism. He nurtures it, making his gaslighting about Ukraine even more repellent.

Putin has condoned and enabled a transnational white supremacist network that stretches around the globe. It's one more instrument in the toolbox Moscow uses to divide democracies.

Perhaps Moscow's most notorious military proxy is the Wagner Group, mercenaries the Kremlin has used to wage deniable war and otherwise promote its interests in places like Syria, Libya and Mozambique. Recently the Wagner Group deployed to the Central African Republic, and it has shown up in Mali, where its brutal methods appear to be replacing previous efforts by the international community to fight terrorists active in the country.

The Wagner Group is named after the 19th century German composer Richard Wagner, whose music Adolf Hitler adored. The group's leader, Dmitry Utkin, reportedly wears Nazi tattoos, including a swastika, a Nazi eagle and SS lightning bolts. Wagner mercenaries are reported to have left behind neo-Nazi propaganda in the war zones where they've fought, including graffiti with hate symbols.

Source

Also, accusing others of what you are doing is a textbook Nazi technique meant to distract and dilute such accusations when they inevitably come your way.  So Putin begins by saying the Ukrainians are nazis and the NATO are warmongers so that when he promotes a similar far-right ideology and starts a war, people are left scratching their heads and wondering who to back in this seemingly he-said-she-said accusation and counter-accusation instead of coming to the obvious conclusion that Putin is in fact the warmonger and Putin is engaging in genocide.

[Hydra009]

[Hydra009]

For the first time, Israel is going to start exporting its famed Merkava tank to two countries.  They won't disclose the names of those countries, but said that one of them is in Europe.

Hmmm...

[Hydra009]

Sweden agrees to train Ukrainian pilots on Gripen

Putin must be gripen his bunker toilet and shitting bricks right now!

[Hydra009]

Ukrainian HOA demolishes illegal treehouse

Someone's gotta think about property values around here.

[Cassia]

One captured Russian soldier has a clue.

[Hydra009]

Sweden delivers 50 CV-90 IFVs to Ukraine (Ukrainian forces just finished training)

with Barracuda Thermal Camouflage System, to boot!

These are very high mobility IFVs, able to travel rough terrain with ease - especially snowy or muddy terrain, which should come in handy in Ukraine

[Hydra009]

Russian milbloggers furious with Putin regime for troops waiting two hours for commander to give a speech, got promoted to cargo 200 instead

Prominent commentator Rybar, said: "A tragic incident occurred in one of the divisions that were about to go on the offensive. For two hours people stood in a crowd in one place and waited for the division commander to say his motivating words.

"But instead of him, the HIMARS MLRS and enemy artillery had their say.

Taking aim at the Kremlin's habit of glossing over major losses of troops, he added: "We are at war with our own stupidity and bullshit, smeared from above with beautiful reports."

"If by the middle of the second year of the war there are commanders that carry columns to the front and build personnel in one big pile, and then wait for the enemy artillery to strike, then such commanders must be shot before the formation, even if they are colonels or even generals."

I'm pretty sure the Ukrainians wouldn't be opposed to that idea.

[Shiranu]

Awaiting this Pulitzer-prize winning film - recorded by two Ukrainians and a Parisian journalist and smuggled out of the city partially on cell phone - somewhat "eagerly" - it will be nice to have video from the scene of the crime to respond to propagandists with; they can deny it, but ultimately people who don't really read but just watch clips will see the reality anyways.

Not a movie I plan on watching all at once...

[Shiranu]

Also, an article The Moscow Times has left up since 2014... tells the story of a strangely familiar looking man, who may or may not be the Minister of Defense of the Donetsk People's Republic Igor Gerkin, with an incredibly dark past and a strange way of changing identities.

But surely this must not be real; after all, NATO was responsible for the war... not Russia!

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2014/11/21/russias-igor-strelkov-i-am-responsible-for-war-in-eastern-ukraine-a41598

[Hydra009]

Ukraine now controls the high ground NW of Bakhmut, making nearby Russian positions untenable