That's disappointing but not surprising. Exactly as Mongo (PJF) pointed out in his video which was posted a couple days ago.
ALERT RUSSIA INVADES UKRAINE - Consolidated Thread
- Thread starter danielboon
- Start date
jward
passin' thru
Yup, we've covered it in a serious manner here, earlier- and yeah, understood and pointed out the likely trajectories; it just got lost in all the fluff and nonsense.
..more importantly, are you managing ok over there???
jward
passin' thru
Disclose.tv
@disclosetv
43m
JUST IN - Chechen leader Kadyrov suggests a low-yield nuclear strike after Lyman defeat in the annexed Donetsk region.
Guy Elster
@guyelster
1h
#BREAKING Chechen leader Kadyrov says #Russia should consider using low yield nuclear weapon in #Ukraine after Lyman defeat
BNO News
@BNONews
1h
BREAKING: Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov calls on Putin to take "more drastic measures," including martial law and the use of low-yield nuclear weapons
@disclosetv
43m
JUST IN - Chechen leader Kadyrov suggests a low-yield nuclear strike after Lyman defeat in the annexed Donetsk region.
Guy Elster
@guyelster
1h
#BREAKING Chechen leader Kadyrov says #Russia should consider using low yield nuclear weapon in #Ukraine after Lyman defeat
BNO News
@BNONews
1h
BREAKING: Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov calls on Putin to take "more drastic measures," including martial law and the use of low-yield nuclear weapons
The Kyiv Independent
@KyivIndependent
1h
️Russia confirms defeat in Lyman, Donetsk Oblast.
According to Russia's Defense Ministry, Russian troops have pulled out of the strategic city, fearing encirclement.
Russian troops have been occupying Lyman since May.
jward
passin' thru
Belarus has deployed up to 7 battalion-tactical groups near the borders with Ukraine.
Russia withdraws from Lyman as Ukraine pushes into annexed city
View: https://twitter.com/EndGameWW3/status/1576237122364792832?s=20&t=QbwFZfxgvuTlkKO13UauZg
Russia withdraws from Lyman as Ukraine pushes into annexed city
View: https://twitter.com/EndGameWW3/status/1576237122364792832?s=20&t=QbwFZfxgvuTlkKO13UauZg
jward
passin' thru
Samuel Ramani
@SamRamani2
BREAKING: Germany promises Moldova military aid
German Defence Minister Christine Lambrecht's strategy to help Moldova counter Russian aggression has 2 dimensions The first is the provision of drones, the second is helping Moldova destroy and secure Soviet-era munitions
5:14 AM · Oct 1, 2022·Twitter Web App
~BREAKING: Aircraft catches fire during landing at Belbek airfield in Crimea. Explosions reported.
View: https://twitter.com/Faytuks/status/1576227932246507522?s=20&t=QbwFZfxgvuTlkKO13UauZg
@SamRamani2
BREAKING: Germany promises Moldova military aid
German Defence Minister Christine Lambrecht's strategy to help Moldova counter Russian aggression has 2 dimensions The first is the provision of drones, the second is helping Moldova destroy and secure Soviet-era munitions
5:14 AM · Oct 1, 2022·Twitter Web App
~BREAKING: Aircraft catches fire during landing at Belbek airfield in Crimea. Explosions reported.
View: https://twitter.com/Faytuks/status/1576227932246507522?s=20&t=QbwFZfxgvuTlkKO13UauZg
AlfaMan
Has No Life - Lives on TB
F*CK the Chechen animals. They make Cossacks look like boy scouts. Murder runs in their blood, of course they want a low yield nuclear strike. Idiots.
Chechniya is like Maryland as far as I'm concerned. Fence it in and carpet bomb it. That one oblast provides Islamic fighters for AlQ, ISIS, Al Shabab gets training from Chechens. Nothing but animals as far as I'm concerned.
And many years ago these animals blew a young man, a beloved only child, off the top of a hill outside Grozny. Nothing left of him to send home, mortars. Chechens deserve high yield nuclear bombardment as far as I'm concerned.
Nuke em till they glow then shoot em in the dark.
In Soviet cinema, the Georgian was always projected as the swarthy criminal mob type. I'm certain Soviet filmmakers got it wrong. Way wrong.
onetimer
Veteran Member
Lol nice catch.
View: https://twitter.com/vcdgf555/status/1576238229426081792?t=AMXcT3wnrT2FS31R9UXz9w&s=19
View: https://twitter.com/vcdgf555/status/1576238229426081792?t=AMXcT3wnrT2FS31R9UXz9w&s=19
Attachments
jward
passin' thru
BREAKING: The gas leak on Nord Stream 2 has stopped because the pipeline has been emptied - TV2
spook
@spook_info
Gazprom is halting gas deliveries all over Europe today. Not good.
Update: Russian Gazprom informs Italy that it will stop pumping gas to it as of today
JUST IN - Russia's Gazprom suspends gas transit through Austria.
spook
@spook_info
Gazprom is halting gas deliveries all over Europe today. Not good.
Update: Russian Gazprom informs Italy that it will stop pumping gas to it as of today
JUST IN - Russia's Gazprom suspends gas transit through Austria.
AlfaMan
Has No Life - Lives on TB
Love it; but also worried this is the pretext Putin was hoping for regarding the use of "any weapons" to protect the newest members of his 21st century Rodina.
This could be a trigger event folks. Also, there's a report of a plane sliding off the runway somewhere in Crimea and causing a big fire. BBC is just reporting it.
AlfaMan
Has No Life - Lives on TB
GREAT catch, actually. Betting the plane was an IL-76. Big fire, big plane. Hopefully full of Russian troops.
jward
passin' thru
Yeah, they're a special breed o' brutal; though I guess in one of those odd ways, many of us owe our buckling down and getting oober serious about terrorism on our shores, and preparing to deal with same, to the spectre of that Beslan school seige : (
Not that there are any good guys in a war zone; even if they start as such, it's quickly bred outta em.
No idea tho if they really call for the nukes, or that is just more of the kabuki script we're watching, and it really dooesn't matter.
AlfaMan
Has No Life - Lives on TB
Pulling in the carpet, so to speak. This is like the US stopping oil deliveries and scrap metal sales to Japan pre WW2. BIG DOT.
The line wasn't delivering anything; I believe fuel was being held in the pipelines to maintain pressure and prevent rusting of the lines. Don't quote me on that but I believe that's why it leaked fuel when it got hit.
AlfaMan
Has No Life - Lives on TB
Murderous animals, that's all they are. A blight on Russia, truthfully. Beslan, ugh, hadn't thought of that in a while. So sad!
Also, a touch off topic. Today is the 70th birthday of the Chinese Communist party. Has anyone seen Winnie the Xi make any appearances or speeches yet? I can't find anything, anyone else?
mzkitty
I give up.
mzkitty
I give up.
jward
passin' thru
Yup, he's been out and about. Still can't find out who was behind beating that drum that he was arrested so hard, or what it took our eyes off of, but it was "interesting"
bw
Fringe Ranger
I agree. If it didn't have fuel, it would have needed water to keep it from floating, I suspect.
jward
passin' thru
Oliver Carroll
@olliecarroll
1h
The claim by Russian-appointed Governor of Sevastopol is that a plane overshot runway. If it did, it seems then have run into an arms dump.
View: https://twitter.com/olliecarroll/status/1576229330736525314?s=20&t=QbwFZfxgvuTlkKO13UauZg
onetimer
Veteran Member
More details,
-----------------
4:25
Ukraine Reaches Outskirts of Lyman -- City Possible Abandoned
View: https://youtu.be/rI2yOEGxzB0
-----------------
4:25
Ukraine Reaches Outskirts of Lyman -- City Possible Abandoned
Last edited:
von Koehler
Has No Life - Lives on TB
Russian conscripts have to learn not to smoke near ammo dumps.
jward
passin' thru
Samuel Ramani
@SamRamani2
BREAKING: Gas starts flowing through the Norway-Poland pipeline
Gas flows are moving via Denmark and the Baltic Sea
As promised, the Nord Stream leak has caused no delay in the supply of gas from Norway to Poland
5:57 AM · Oct 1, 2022
·Twitter Web App
@SamRamani2
BREAKING: Gas starts flowing through the Norway-Poland pipeline
Gas flows are moving via Denmark and the Baltic Sea
As promised, the Nord Stream leak has caused no delay in the supply of gas from Norway to Poland
5:57 AM · Oct 1, 2022
·Twitter Web App
Grumphau
Veteran Member
They also need to learn not to store ammo at the end of runways apparently.
intothatgoodnight
. . .
Fixed it for you.
The "deep state" has been busy undermining world governments for a long time.
Contemporary history documents this fact.
Follow the money.
intothegoodnight
The following will shed an enormous amount of insight as to why the Russian military has performed so poorly over the last seven months. Also the outlook for Russia's future is even more bleak.
----------
For nearly seven months, the war in Ukraine was not really regarded as a genuine war by the Russian government. The fighting would be done not by a fully mobilised Russian force, but by regular units, mercenaries, and Donbass conscripts - Russia's own conscripts would stay at home.
But after seven months the result of that complacency was a crushing shortage of manpower to feed Russian frontline units. Ukrainian mobilisation had made good manpower losses and allowed the formation of entirely new units - while the Russian regular army, still undoubtedly a powerful force, found itself overstretched and forced to trust sections of the front to proxies or Rosgvardia.
The results of that policy were obvious during the Kharkiv offensive.
Now, Russia has decided to double down and recommit to war. Announcing mobilisation, enacting stop-loss, and 'annexing' parts of Ukraine. In this video, I explore why, how it's going, and what the implication may be.
1:13:21
Russian Mobilisation - what does it mean for the war in Ukraine?
View: https://youtu.be/6hXnQNU8ANo
Timestamps:
00:00:00 — Opening Words
00:01:40 — What Am I Covering?
00:02:41 — Sponsor: BLINKIST
00:04:20 — The Problem
00:04:48 — Strategic Inputs
00:06:24 — Russia's 'Unused Strength'
00:08:22 — 1GTA: Instructors and Missileers
00:09:26 — Driving Issues
00:09:37 — I1: Casualties and Attrition
00:11:03 — I2: Contract Lapses
00:13:36 — I3: Recruitment Deficit
00:15:46 — I4: Deployment Restrictions
00:16:58 — Bleeding or Just Fading Away?
00:18:12 — Preparation & Denial
00:19:47 — The Announcement
00:21:07 — The Document
00:22:45 — Reality Might be a Bit Different...
00:23:04 — Stop-Loss & Referenda
00:23:15 — Stop-Loss, Russian Style
00:25:07 — Redefining Russia
00:27:36 — Mobilisation
00:27:51 — Russian Reserves/Resources
00:28:12 — What Are the Russian "Reserves"
00:28:50 — Russian Reserve Readiness
00:29:30 — Who is Being Called Up
00:30:52 — Making Quota
00:32:57 — Training Standards
00:35:42 — Training Failures at the Personal Level
00:37:40 — Equipment Standards
00:39:17 — BYO Kit
00:42:14 — Acknowledging Missteps
00:44:26 — Public Responses
00:45:52 — Motivations for Evasion
00:46:45 — Evaluating the Public Response
00:48:11 — Impacts & Questions
00:48:52 — Q1: Training Pipeline
00:52:27 — Q2: Morale
00:54:26 — Q3: Utilisation
00:56:14 — Stabilising the Situation
00:57:51 — Learning from Ukraine
01:00:44 — A Workable Proxy?
01:03:34 — Inflection Potential?
01:05:23 — Towards General Mobilisation...
01:07:18 — More Painful War
01:09:00 — Conclusions
01:11:43 — Channel Update
----------
For nearly seven months, the war in Ukraine was not really regarded as a genuine war by the Russian government. The fighting would be done not by a fully mobilised Russian force, but by regular units, mercenaries, and Donbass conscripts - Russia's own conscripts would stay at home.
But after seven months the result of that complacency was a crushing shortage of manpower to feed Russian frontline units. Ukrainian mobilisation had made good manpower losses and allowed the formation of entirely new units - while the Russian regular army, still undoubtedly a powerful force, found itself overstretched and forced to trust sections of the front to proxies or Rosgvardia.
The results of that policy were obvious during the Kharkiv offensive.
Now, Russia has decided to double down and recommit to war. Announcing mobilisation, enacting stop-loss, and 'annexing' parts of Ukraine. In this video, I explore why, how it's going, and what the implication may be.
1:13:21
Russian Mobilisation - what does it mean for the war in Ukraine?
Timestamps:
00:00:00 — Opening Words
00:01:40 — What Am I Covering?
00:02:41 — Sponsor: BLINKIST
00:04:20 — The Problem
00:04:48 — Strategic Inputs
00:06:24 — Russia's 'Unused Strength'
00:08:22 — 1GTA: Instructors and Missileers
00:09:26 — Driving Issues
00:09:37 — I1: Casualties and Attrition
00:11:03 — I2: Contract Lapses
00:13:36 — I3: Recruitment Deficit
00:15:46 — I4: Deployment Restrictions
00:16:58 — Bleeding or Just Fading Away?
00:18:12 — Preparation & Denial
00:19:47 — The Announcement
00:21:07 — The Document
00:22:45 — Reality Might be a Bit Different...
00:23:04 — Stop-Loss & Referenda
00:23:15 — Stop-Loss, Russian Style
00:25:07 — Redefining Russia
00:27:36 — Mobilisation
00:27:51 — Russian Reserves/Resources
00:28:12 — What Are the Russian "Reserves"
00:28:50 — Russian Reserve Readiness
00:29:30 — Who is Being Called Up
00:30:52 — Making Quota
00:32:57 — Training Standards
00:35:42 — Training Failures at the Personal Level
00:37:40 — Equipment Standards
00:39:17 — BYO Kit
00:42:14 — Acknowledging Missteps
00:44:26 — Public Responses
00:45:52 — Motivations for Evasion
00:46:45 — Evaluating the Public Response
00:48:11 — Impacts & Questions
00:48:52 — Q1: Training Pipeline
00:52:27 — Q2: Morale
00:54:26 — Q3: Utilisation
00:56:14 — Stabilising the Situation
00:57:51 — Learning from Ukraine
01:00:44 — A Workable Proxy?
01:03:34 — Inflection Potential?
01:05:23 — Towards General Mobilisation...
01:07:18 — More Painful War
01:09:00 — Conclusions
01:11:43 — Channel Update
intothatgoodnight
. . .
There is ALSO "nothing more un-American than cheering" for a Ukrainian government that is deeply involved with the utterly corrupt and contemptible communist Biden regime, and its deep state international communist puppeteers.
Nothing.
Follow the money.
intothegoodnight
Last edited:
AlfaMan
Has No Life - Lives on TB
Funny how Ukraine still uses those city markers/city signs. The Soviets put them up, it was actually a small part of one of the 5 year plans post WW2. Those are still all over Russia and former Russian countries.
But I don't see happiness at capturing Lyman-it's at the fringe of Donetsk BUT is still firmly in the oblast that Putin declared a part of Mother Russia.
What I see is Russian troops potentially setting up a sucker punch on the Ukranian forces. Remember your Russian WW2 history? When the Germans invaded, Russia put up very little fight initially. Germany captured huge swatches of European Russia, Ukraine etc. Then winter came............Germans weren't prepared for the bitter cold winter, either in the context of man or machine.
The Soviets were-and proceeded to kick German a** all the way back to Berlin. Obviously it took a few years; but destruction of the German forces each step of the way was brutal and complete.
I see Russian forces potentially doing the same thing here. Let the Ukranians in, let them grab some fringe areas of Donetsk and the other oblasts. They're equally matched in terms of knowing how to fight in winter, so that's not a variable here.
I believe the variable is how Putin has described the oblasts as part of Russia/the Rodina. And that an attack on them (hmm, like taking over Lyman, hmmm. Yes............) is a formal declaration of war against Ukraine and an excuse to toss the kitchen sink at Ukraine (including those tactical nuclear kitchen sinks at them in particular).
Possibly this is the opening Russia is looking for. Sucker them in, declare war formally and decimate the troops on the ground. Watch this little town become the match that sets the war aflame for real.
Has anyone noted large numbers of tank/tracked vehicles/mobile artillery being trucked in or being sent somewhere by train? Remember the battle of Kursk?
https://www.warhistoryonline.com/wo...-biggest-tank-battle-of-wwii-mm.html?chrome=1
jward
passin' thru
Putin's annexation of Ukrainian land raises the risks a nuclear weapon will be used and tanks the possibility of talks to end the war
John Haltiwanger
Putin's annexation of four regions of Ukraine raises the risk of a nuclear weapon being used in the long-term, experts warn.
"Russia is committing to an escalation," one Russia expert told Insider.
Putin sees this moment as one of "civilizational conflict with the West," a former senior intelligence officer told Insider.
Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the annexation of four Ukrainian regions into Russia on Friday in a bombastic speech filled with anti-Western rhetoric, nuclear threats, and historical revisionism. He also warned that Russia "will defend our land with all the powers and means at our disposal."
Russia watchers and military experts told Insider that these aggressive moves and statements show Putin is "losing" in Ukraine and wants the US and its NATO allies to "back off." They warn that Putin has effectively eliminated the possibility of negotiations and stressed that these annexations raise the risk of nuclear weapons being used in the long-term.
Putin sees this moment as one of "civilizational conflict with the West," and he made this clear in his speech, Andrea Kendall-Taylor, a former senior intelligence officer who led strategic analysis on Russia for the National Intelligence Council from 2015 to 2018, told Insider.
The Russian president is "raising the stakes in so many different ways," said Kendall-Taylor, now the director of the Transatlantic Security Program at the Center for a New American Security.
During his speech, Putin said that use of nuclear weaponry by the US against Japan during World War II set a "precedent."
That Putin went out of his way to make such a point is "extremely unnerving," Kendall-Taylor said, adding that it almost seems as if the Russian leader is "talking himself into it and looking for ways to justify his potential use of a nuclear weapon if he needs to do so at a later date."
The risks of Putin employing a nuclear weapon in the immediate future are "still low," she said, but she emphasized that the annexation "increased those risks."
"I do worry now that as the Ukrainians reclaim territory that Russia has now annexed and that [Putin] claims as Russian, given that he now is so personally invested in this, that the risk of his use of a tactical nuke on the battlefield in Ukraine has gone up," Kendall-Taylor said.
'Committing to an escalation'
The Moscow-appointed heads of Kherson region Vladimir Saldo and Zaporizhzhia region Yevgeny Balitsky, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Donetsk separatist leader Denis Pushilin and Lugansk separatist leader Leonid Pasechnik join hands after signing treaties formally annexing four regions of Ukraine Russian troops occupy, at the Kremlin in Moscow on September 30, 2022.
The Moscow-appointed heads of Kherson region Vladimir Saldo and Zaporizhzhia region Yevgeny Balitsky, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Donetsk separatist leader Denis Pushilin and Lugansk separatist leader Leonid Pasechnik join hands after signing treaties formally annexing four regions of Ukraine Russian troops occupy, at the Kremlin in Moscow on September 30, 2022.
GRIGORY SYSOYEV/SPUTNIK/AFP via Getty Images
"Russia is committing to an escalation," Cynthia Hooper, a history professor and Russia expert at the College of the Holy Cross, told Insider.
Putin is using the illegal annexations of Ukraine's Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia oblasts to reframe the war for Russian citizens, Hooper said, adding that "now he and his advisors can tell a story, going forward, of how the Kremlin wants peace but Ukraine and its US supporters are insisting on war and attacking Mother Russia."
"This is scary. It is a false narrative, constructed by a person who absolutely knows his actions will prompt further conflict. It is a strategy designed in expectation of military escalation," Hooper said.
The pressing issue for Putin at the moment is that he's "been losing," Jeffrey Edmonds, a CNA Russia expert and former CIA military analyst, told Insider, and the "annexation, the mobilization — these are all measures he's trying to take to fix the problem."
The Ukraine war has been disastrous for the Russian military so far. Strategically, military experts say that Russia has essentially already been defeated. Putin launched the war with the goal of subjugating the whole of Ukraine. But Russia failed to take Kyiv and was effectively forced to turn its attention to the eastern Donbas region — a far less ambitious objective.
Russian forces are estimated to have suffered as many as 80,000 casualties, if not more, since the war began, and they've struggled with myriad equipment issues.
Meanwhile, Ukraine has in recent weeks managed to recapture a significant chunk of territory as part of a blistering counteroffensive. These losses are widely believed to be the reason behind Putin's decision last week to announced a military mobilization plan, calling up tens of thousands of reservists to help address Russia's manpower problems. There have been a number of signs that the mobilization is highly unpopular, with thousands of Russian men fleeing the country amid nationwide protests and even instances of violence.
Putin realizes that Russia is "really on a negative trajectory at this point," Edmonds said. "The counteroffensive and the fact that he wasn't able to take these territories like he thought, that was a big turning point for him and the Russian population in which he really felt like he needs to escalate — or at least rhetorically escalate and warn of nuclear weapons."
Putin knows the US and NATO do not want to go to war with Russia and is trying to send a message that if they keep providing Ukraine with weapons and security assistance, then that's "exactly what we'll have, with all the nuclear trappings that go with it," Edmonds said, "That's really where the rhetoric comes from. He's always used nuclear rhetoric, but it it is picking up."
Indeed, the mobilization and annexations come at a desperate moment for Putin. In formally annexing the four Ukrainian regions — a move that came after referendums decried as a sham by leaders across the globe — Putin is vying to hold on to what little progress Russian forces have made. But as Ukraine's counteroffensive continues, Russia may find it difficult to hold on to the territory it now claims as its own and vows to defend.
Putin announced the annexations "even as Ukrainian forces encircled Russian troops in the key city of Lyman, Luhansk Oblast, immediately demonstrating that Russia will struggle to hold the territory it claims to have annexed," according to a Friday report from the Institute for the Study of War, which has provided timely battlefield updates on the Ukraine conflict. "Putin likely intends annexation to freeze the war along the current frontlines and allow time for Russian mobilization to reconstitute Russian forces," the report added.
'There's not a negotiated settlement to this'
Ukraine soldier shoots at Russian drone
A Ukrainian serviceman shoots at a Russian drone with an assault rifle from a trench at the front line east of Kharkiv, March 31, 2022.
FADEL SENNA/AFP via Getty Images
The annexation of Ukraine's territory, which came eight years after Russia annexed Crimea, also greatly diminishes the possibility of any negotiations between Moscow and Kyiv.
"The ceremony today was presented, on Russian television and to a domestic Russian audience, as a Russian victory. Putin said himself that now that these four regions have been, in his words, reunited with Russia, he is prepared to negotiate for peace — but then in the same breath, he added that any peace deal would have to respect these new territorial acquisitions and that their status was not up for future negotiation," Hooper said.
Ukraine has been clear that it will not accept any peace deal that involves ceding territory to Russia.
"Russia has been and remains an aggressor illegally occupying parts of Ukrainian land. Ukraine has every right to liberate its territories and will keep liberating them whatever Russia has to say," Ukraine's Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said in a tweet earlier this month.
Along these lines, analysts say that Putin has helped ensure that the Ukraine war won't end any time soon. The annexations solidify for "the Ukrainians that they have to defeat the Russians in Ukraine," Edmonds said, "There's not a negotiated settlement to this."
"I don't think there's room for negotiation for quite some time because the Ukrainians have been winning and the Russians just demand Ukrainian surrender. Why would you surrender when you're winning?" Edmonds added.
And if Russia continues to lose ground, particularly in territories in now claims as its own yet does not fully occupy, this could reduce the threshold for further escalation and possibly even the use of a nuclear weapon.
"In some ways the mobilization itself lowered the probability of nuclear use in the near-term," Edmonds said, explaining that Putin announced the draft to help address the issues Russian forces have been facing and that he wants to see how it all plays out.
"Now, let's say in some scenario, it doesn't fix the problem. The Russian military collapses over the winter, and he starts losing big — then I think the chances for non-strategic nuclear use go up. But I think right now he's really trying to step up the rhetoric to get the US and NATO to back off," Edmonds added.
Similarly, Kendall-Taylor said that the "unfortunate reality" is that the better the Ukrainians do on the battlefield, the higher the risk of Russia using a tactical nuclear weapon. "The stakes are higher for Putin," Kendall-Taylor said, because mobilization and annexation were "quite clearly his decisions."
Putin will give mobilization a "little bit of time to play out and to see how effective it can be in turning the tide, or at least stemming Ukrainian advances," Kendall-Taylor said, but the use of a tactical nuclear weapon in Ukraine is "directly tied to Russia's fate on the battlefield."
www.businessinsider.com
John Haltiwanger
Putin's annexation of four regions of Ukraine raises the risk of a nuclear weapon being used in the long-term, experts warn.
"Russia is committing to an escalation," one Russia expert told Insider.
Putin sees this moment as one of "civilizational conflict with the West," a former senior intelligence officer told Insider.
Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the annexation of four Ukrainian regions into Russia on Friday in a bombastic speech filled with anti-Western rhetoric, nuclear threats, and historical revisionism. He also warned that Russia "will defend our land with all the powers and means at our disposal."
Russia watchers and military experts told Insider that these aggressive moves and statements show Putin is "losing" in Ukraine and wants the US and its NATO allies to "back off." They warn that Putin has effectively eliminated the possibility of negotiations and stressed that these annexations raise the risk of nuclear weapons being used in the long-term.
Putin sees this moment as one of "civilizational conflict with the West," and he made this clear in his speech, Andrea Kendall-Taylor, a former senior intelligence officer who led strategic analysis on Russia for the National Intelligence Council from 2015 to 2018, told Insider.
The Russian president is "raising the stakes in so many different ways," said Kendall-Taylor, now the director of the Transatlantic Security Program at the Center for a New American Security.
During his speech, Putin said that use of nuclear weaponry by the US against Japan during World War II set a "precedent."
That Putin went out of his way to make such a point is "extremely unnerving," Kendall-Taylor said, adding that it almost seems as if the Russian leader is "talking himself into it and looking for ways to justify his potential use of a nuclear weapon if he needs to do so at a later date."
The risks of Putin employing a nuclear weapon in the immediate future are "still low," she said, but she emphasized that the annexation "increased those risks."
"I do worry now that as the Ukrainians reclaim territory that Russia has now annexed and that [Putin] claims as Russian, given that he now is so personally invested in this, that the risk of his use of a tactical nuke on the battlefield in Ukraine has gone up," Kendall-Taylor said.
'Committing to an escalation'
The Moscow-appointed heads of Kherson region Vladimir Saldo and Zaporizhzhia region Yevgeny Balitsky, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Donetsk separatist leader Denis Pushilin and Lugansk separatist leader Leonid Pasechnik join hands after signing treaties formally annexing four regions of Ukraine Russian troops occupy, at the Kremlin in Moscow on September 30, 2022.
The Moscow-appointed heads of Kherson region Vladimir Saldo and Zaporizhzhia region Yevgeny Balitsky, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Donetsk separatist leader Denis Pushilin and Lugansk separatist leader Leonid Pasechnik join hands after signing treaties formally annexing four regions of Ukraine Russian troops occupy, at the Kremlin in Moscow on September 30, 2022.
GRIGORY SYSOYEV/SPUTNIK/AFP via Getty Images
"Russia is committing to an escalation," Cynthia Hooper, a history professor and Russia expert at the College of the Holy Cross, told Insider.
Putin is using the illegal annexations of Ukraine's Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia oblasts to reframe the war for Russian citizens, Hooper said, adding that "now he and his advisors can tell a story, going forward, of how the Kremlin wants peace but Ukraine and its US supporters are insisting on war and attacking Mother Russia."
"This is scary. It is a false narrative, constructed by a person who absolutely knows his actions will prompt further conflict. It is a strategy designed in expectation of military escalation," Hooper said.
The pressing issue for Putin at the moment is that he's "been losing," Jeffrey Edmonds, a CNA Russia expert and former CIA military analyst, told Insider, and the "annexation, the mobilization — these are all measures he's trying to take to fix the problem."
The Ukraine war has been disastrous for the Russian military so far. Strategically, military experts say that Russia has essentially already been defeated. Putin launched the war with the goal of subjugating the whole of Ukraine. But Russia failed to take Kyiv and was effectively forced to turn its attention to the eastern Donbas region — a far less ambitious objective.
Russian forces are estimated to have suffered as many as 80,000 casualties, if not more, since the war began, and they've struggled with myriad equipment issues.
Meanwhile, Ukraine has in recent weeks managed to recapture a significant chunk of territory as part of a blistering counteroffensive. These losses are widely believed to be the reason behind Putin's decision last week to announced a military mobilization plan, calling up tens of thousands of reservists to help address Russia's manpower problems. There have been a number of signs that the mobilization is highly unpopular, with thousands of Russian men fleeing the country amid nationwide protests and even instances of violence.
Putin realizes that Russia is "really on a negative trajectory at this point," Edmonds said. "The counteroffensive and the fact that he wasn't able to take these territories like he thought, that was a big turning point for him and the Russian population in which he really felt like he needs to escalate — or at least rhetorically escalate and warn of nuclear weapons."
Putin knows the US and NATO do not want to go to war with Russia and is trying to send a message that if they keep providing Ukraine with weapons and security assistance, then that's "exactly what we'll have, with all the nuclear trappings that go with it," Edmonds said, "That's really where the rhetoric comes from. He's always used nuclear rhetoric, but it it is picking up."
Indeed, the mobilization and annexations come at a desperate moment for Putin. In formally annexing the four Ukrainian regions — a move that came after referendums decried as a sham by leaders across the globe — Putin is vying to hold on to what little progress Russian forces have made. But as Ukraine's counteroffensive continues, Russia may find it difficult to hold on to the territory it now claims as its own and vows to defend.
Putin announced the annexations "even as Ukrainian forces encircled Russian troops in the key city of Lyman, Luhansk Oblast, immediately demonstrating that Russia will struggle to hold the territory it claims to have annexed," according to a Friday report from the Institute for the Study of War, which has provided timely battlefield updates on the Ukraine conflict. "Putin likely intends annexation to freeze the war along the current frontlines and allow time for Russian mobilization to reconstitute Russian forces," the report added.
'There's not a negotiated settlement to this'
Ukraine soldier shoots at Russian drone
A Ukrainian serviceman shoots at a Russian drone with an assault rifle from a trench at the front line east of Kharkiv, March 31, 2022.
FADEL SENNA/AFP via Getty Images
The annexation of Ukraine's territory, which came eight years after Russia annexed Crimea, also greatly diminishes the possibility of any negotiations between Moscow and Kyiv.
"The ceremony today was presented, on Russian television and to a domestic Russian audience, as a Russian victory. Putin said himself that now that these four regions have been, in his words, reunited with Russia, he is prepared to negotiate for peace — but then in the same breath, he added that any peace deal would have to respect these new territorial acquisitions and that their status was not up for future negotiation," Hooper said.
Ukraine has been clear that it will not accept any peace deal that involves ceding territory to Russia.
"Russia has been and remains an aggressor illegally occupying parts of Ukrainian land. Ukraine has every right to liberate its territories and will keep liberating them whatever Russia has to say," Ukraine's Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said in a tweet earlier this month.
Along these lines, analysts say that Putin has helped ensure that the Ukraine war won't end any time soon. The annexations solidify for "the Ukrainians that they have to defeat the Russians in Ukraine," Edmonds said, "There's not a negotiated settlement to this."
"I don't think there's room for negotiation for quite some time because the Ukrainians have been winning and the Russians just demand Ukrainian surrender. Why would you surrender when you're winning?" Edmonds added.
And if Russia continues to lose ground, particularly in territories in now claims as its own yet does not fully occupy, this could reduce the threshold for further escalation and possibly even the use of a nuclear weapon.
"In some ways the mobilization itself lowered the probability of nuclear use in the near-term," Edmonds said, explaining that Putin announced the draft to help address the issues Russian forces have been facing and that he wants to see how it all plays out.
"Now, let's say in some scenario, it doesn't fix the problem. The Russian military collapses over the winter, and he starts losing big — then I think the chances for non-strategic nuclear use go up. But I think right now he's really trying to step up the rhetoric to get the US and NATO to back off," Edmonds added.
Similarly, Kendall-Taylor said that the "unfortunate reality" is that the better the Ukrainians do on the battlefield, the higher the risk of Russia using a tactical nuclear weapon. "The stakes are higher for Putin," Kendall-Taylor said, because mobilization and annexation were "quite clearly his decisions."
Putin will give mobilization a "little bit of time to play out and to see how effective it can be in turning the tide, or at least stemming Ukrainian advances," Kendall-Taylor said, but the use of a tactical nuclear weapon in Ukraine is "directly tied to Russia's fate on the battlefield."
Putin's annexation of Ukrainian land raises the risks a nuclear weapon will be used and tanks the possibility of talks to end the war
Putin sees this moment as one of "civilizational conflict with the West," a former senior intelligence officer told Insider.
www.businessinsider.com
AlfaMan
Has No Life - Lives on TB
Then I guess I'm un American then. Not cheering for the deep state, communist puppeteers etc. Cheering for the people of Ukraine.
von Koehler
Has No Life - Lives on TB
The T62 tanks would be more valuable to tank collectors.
Otherwise just mobile crematoria for the conscripts.
The only rational move for a conscript would be to surrender to the first Ukrainian he sees.
Otherwise just mobile crematoria for the conscripts.
The only rational move for a conscript would be to surrender to the first Ukrainian he sees.
mzkitty
I give up.
naegling62
Veteran Member
We are definitely able to see the ugly facts that will be cleaned up once the victor writes the history.
jward
passin' thru
I don't have any cheers in me, on my knees in PRAYER- for the regular people-pawns all over this globe who're allotted the task of doing the crying and dying as the toxic skin sac elites do their gaming.
Not sure why we sink to such black and white commentary here; surely we all appreciate the nuance and even tho the format doesn't lend itself to bringing that out, realize the truth- about the issues on the world stage, as well as the posters' opinions here, are shades o' grey.
Not sure why we sink to such black and white commentary here; surely we all appreciate the nuance and even tho the format doesn't lend itself to bringing that out, realize the truth- about the issues on the world stage, as well as the posters' opinions here, are shades o' grey.
IIRC, due to international sanctions and the resultant parts shortages, the Russian civil aviation authority recently sent out an advisory warning pilots to "conserve" their brakes due to a shortage of brake pads.
I wonder if the sanctions and parts shortages are spilling over into Russian military aviation now?
von Koehler
Has No Life - Lives on TB
I am well aware of the role Ukraine has in the plans for the Great Reset.
Putin has to be taken down, according to them.
But I do sympathize with the common folk of Ukraine who are dealing with a brutal Russian invasion.
With Russian gas supplies effectively shut off, Europa is in for a hard winter.
Putin has to be taken down, according to them.
But I do sympathize with the common folk of Ukraine who are dealing with a brutal Russian invasion.
With Russian gas supplies effectively shut off, Europa is in for a hard winter.