Russia invades Ukraine

[najaB]

So Zelensky went today to Bakhmut. Another act of defiance against Putin who, so far, hasn't been on Ukrainian soil.

Yet Russian propaganda... err... media says that he spends all his time hiding in a bunker!

 

[brad465]

Zelensky reported to be heading to the US for his first foreign visit since Russia's full-scale invasion. There's also the suggestion the US will supply Ukraine with Patriot missiles to help protect against attacks on critical infrastructure:

Zelensky in Washington: Ukraine's leader heads to US for first foreign trip

The White House will announce a further $2bn in aid to Ukraine, including a Patriot air defence system.

www.bbc.co.uk

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will travel to the US Capitol in Washington on Wednesday, reports say.
Mr Zelensky is set to address a joint session of Congress, unnamed officials told US media. There is no official confirmation.
It will be President Zelensky's first foreign visit since his country was invaded by Russia on 24 February.
Mr Zelensky regularly hosts foreign leaders in the capital, Kyiv, and has visited front-line troops in Ukraine.
Ukraine has received massive military support from Western countries led by the US.
The president has been widely praised for his leadership as his country is pounded by the more powerful neighbour, led by President Vladimir Putin.
What weapons are being supplied to Ukraine?
In terms of overall spending on direct military support since the start of the conflict, the US has committed $18.5bn (£15.1bn), far more than any other individual country (to 20 November).

President Zelensky has appealed for more funding, and has said the monthly cost of defence for Ukraine was about $5bn (£4.1bn).
Most recently, US media have reported that President Joe Biden's administration is considering supplying Ukraine with Patriot missiles that would enable the country to protect its vital infrastructure against Russian attacks.
Russia has been targeting Ukraine's energy sector, plunging millions into darkness in winter temperatures several degrees below freezing.

 

[JKF]

It appears the ‘strategic reserve’ exists, at least in one country…

https://twitter.com/TheDeadDistrict/status/1607079563678388228

 

[Russel]

It appears the ‘strategic reserve’ exists, at least in one country…

https://twitter.com/TheDeadDistrict/status/1607079563678388228

In Russia, they're cutting edge tech.

 

[JKF]

It’s actually for steam specials they’re running over Christmas, despite the ongoing war. They’re doing this to keep up morale and for children’s historical education. That’s some impressive resilience.

 

[Pete_uk]

Glad to see that that airbase deep in Russia has been hit again. Keep them on their toes!

 

[najaB]

Glad to see that that airbase deep in Russia has been hit again. Keep them on their toes!

What are you talking about? That was a... <spins excuse generator> welding accident.

 

[Trackman]

What are you talking about? That was a... <spins excuse generator> welding accident.

Ukraine war: Drone attack on Russian bomber base leaves three dead​

Source: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-64092183

A Ukrainian drone attack on an airbase for bombers in southern Russia has left three people dead, Moscow says.
Air defences shot down the drone near the Engels base, but falling debris fatally wounded three technical staff, the defence ministry said.
Earlier this month, Russia accused Ukraine of a similar attack on the airfield, home to bombers that have carried out missile attacks on Ukraine.
The base lies about 650km (400 miles) north-east of Ukraine's border.
The Ukrainian military did not officially admit to the latest attack, but air force spokesman Yuriy Ihnat said the explosions were the result of what Russia was doing on Ukrainian soil.
Hours afterwards Russia's FSB security service announced it had killed a four-strong "sabotage group" trying to enter the Russian border region of Bryansk from Ukraine armed with improvised explosive devices and German-made submachine guns. The FSB released video of what it said was the "liquidation" of the group, although there is no independent confirmation of the incident.
The latest drone attack inside Russia will come as an embarrassment to Russian authorities, coming so soon after the two 5 December attacks hundreds of kilometres from the front line - both at the Engels base and in the Ryazan region. At the time Russia also blamed falling debris for the deaths of three servicemen and what it described as light damage to two aircraft.
Social media early on Monday posted videos of blasts and air sirens in the vicinity of Engels airfield.
Russia's defence ministry said later that its air defences had shot down the drone flying at low altitude at about 01:35 on Monday (22:35 GMT Sunday).
Saratov governor Roman Busargin expressed his condolences to the men's families and friends, and said there was "absolutely no threat to residents" in the town of Engels itself.
The Ukrainian air force spokesman said satellite imagery of the airfield would soon reveal the full damage from Monday's attack, adding that earlier blasts had damaged aircraft at the base.
The Engels air base has been repeatedly used by Russia to carry out missile strikes on various targets in Ukraine since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion on 24 February.
The Kremlin has accused Ukraine of attacking its territory before, but the latest incidents have taken place far deeper in Russian territory.
After the 5 December attacks, there were widespread calls for tightened security around Russian military installations and the latest attack suggests that has not happened.
Separately on Monday, Ukraine's foreign ministry demanded Russia's removal as one of five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council and called for its exclusion from the UN "as a whole".
There is currently no clear mechanism to replace a permanent Security Council member.

 

[DustyBin]

What are you talking about? That was a... <spins excuse generator> welding accident.

Nah, they’ve learnt their lesson and only use Gorilla Glue now just to be safe. And smoking is banned in Russia, everywhere. My money is on a chip pan fire.

 

[Russel]

Nah, they’ve learnt their lesson and only use Gorilla Glue now just to be safe. And smoking is banned in Russia, everywhere. My money is on a chip pan fire.

Igor burnt the toast...

 

[REVUpminster]

Russian meat magnate Pavel Antov fell from a window of luxury hotel in India. Police says he was depressed because a friend of his was found dead in the same hotel. Telegraph today.

 

[brad465]

Russian meat magnate Pavel Antov fell from a window of luxury hotel in India. Police says he was depressed because a friend of his was found dead in the same hotel. Telegraph today.

BBC now reporting this, calling him a "Sausage Tycoon":

Russian sausage tycoon Pavel Antov dies in Indian hotel fall

Meat millionaire Pavel Antov, who recently denied criticising the war in Ukraine, had just turned 65.

www.bbc.co.uk

Russian sausage tycoon Pavel Antov has been found dead at an Indian hotel, two days after a friend died during the same trip.
They were visiting the eastern state of Odisha and the millionaire, who was also a local politician, had just celebrated his birthday at the hotel.
Antov was a well known figure in the city of Vladimir, east of Moscow.
Last summer he denied criticising Russia's war in Ukraine after a message appeared on his WhatsApp account.
The millionaire's death is the latest in a series of unexplained deaths involving Russian tycoons since the start of the Russian invasion, many of whom have openly criticised the war.
Reports in Russian media said Mr Antov, 65, had fallen from a window at the hotel in the city of Rayagada on Sunday. Another member of his four-strong Russian group, Vladimir Budanov, died at the hotel on Friday.
Superintendent Vivekananda Sharma of Odisha police said Mr Budanov was found to have suffered a stroke while his friend "was depressed after his death and he too died". The Russian consul in Kolkata, Alexei Idamkin, told the Tass news agency that police did not see a "criminal element in these tragic events".
Tourist guide Jitendra Singh told reporters that Mr Budanov may have "consumed a lot of alcohol as he had liquor bottles".
Pavel Antov founded the Vladimir Standard meat processing plant and in 2019 Forbes estimated his fortune at some $140m (£118m) at the top of Russia's rich list of lawmakers and civil servants.
He played an important role at the legislative assembly in Vladimir, heading a committee on agrarian policy and ecology. The assembly's deputy chairman Vyacheslav Kartukhin said he had died in "tragic circumstances".
Late last June he appeared to react to a Russian missile attack on a residential block in the Shevchenkivskyi district of Kyiv that left a man dead and his seven-year-old daughter and her mother wounded.
A WhatsApp message on Antov's account described how the family were pulled out of the rubble: "It's extremely difficult to call all this anything but terror."
The message was deleted and Antov then posted on social media that he was a supporter of the president, a "patriot of my country" and backed the war.
The WhatsApp message had come from someone whose opinion on the "special military operation in Ukraine" he strongly disagreed with, he insisted. It had been posted accidentally on his messenger and was a highly annoying misunderstanding, he said.
Several high-profile Russian tycoons have died in mysterious circumstances since the war began.
In September the head of Russia's oil giant Lukoil, Ravil Maganov, apparently fell from a hospital window in Moscow.

 

[Yew]

BBC now reporting this, calling him a "Sausage Tycoon":

Russian sausage tycoon Pavel Antov dies in Indian hotel fall

Meat millionaire Pavel Antov, who recently denied criticising the war in Ukraine, had just turned 65.

www.bbc.co.uk

Not as popular as Chris Sawyers other games in the series?

 

[brad465]

Not as popular as Chris Sawyers other games in the series?

Might have been inadvertently popular with red light district workers.

 

[Noddy]

Interesting perspectives on how the war will pan out during 2023.

Ukraine war: Five ways conflict could go in 2023

As the conflict enters its second calendar year, experts predict what could happen on the ground.

www.bbc.co.uk

Ukraine war: Five ways conflict could go in 2023​

The conflict in Ukraine is about to enter its second calendar year. We asked several military analysts how they think events on the ground will unfold in 2023.

Could it conclude in the coming year and how - on the battlefield or at the negotiating table? Or might it grind on to 2024….

 

[DustyBin]

BBC now reporting this, calling him a "Sausage Tycoon":

Russian sausage tycoon Pavel Antov dies in Indian hotel fall

Meat millionaire Pavel Antov, who recently denied criticising the war in Ukraine, had just turned 65.

www.bbc.co.uk

A string of suspects I imagine!

 

[AM9]

A string of suspects I imagine!

Probably targeted because of his 'links'.

 

[AlterEgo]

Probably targeted because of his 'links'.

Did a real laugh out loud at this one!

 

[357]

Santa visited children sheltering in the Kyiv Metro today during the missile strikes

 

[brad465]

Looks like the weather at the moment is trying to stick it to Putin:

European weather: Winter heat records smashed all over continent

From Spain to Latvia, national and regional records for January are broken across the continent.

www.bbc.co.uk

Temperatures for January have reached an all-time high in a number of nations across Europe.
National records have fallen in eight countries - and regional records in another three.
Warsaw, Poland, saw 18.9C on Sunday while Bilbao, Spain, was 25.1C - more than 10C above average.
The mild European weather comes as North America faces more severe storms, days after a deadly winter cold snap left more than 60 dead.
Heavy snow and freezing rain have been forecast for parts of the northern Midwest while severe thunderstorms and tornadoes are expected in Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana.
But on the European side of the Atlantic, the weather has been balmy for many places at the start of the year.
Temperatures in the Netherlands, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Latvia, Czech Republic, Poland, Denmark and Belarus broke national records.
Station records were broken in Germany, France and Ukraine.

The temperature recorded in Warsaw on 1 January was 4C higher than the previous record for the month, and Belarus' record high was 16.4C, some 4.5C above the previous record.
In Spain, New Year's Day temperatures in Bilbao were equivalent to the average in July, and parts of Catalonia including Barcelona are subject to restrictions on water use.
Records are broken all the time, but it is unusual for the difference to be more than a few 10ths of a degree.
In Switzerland, temperatures hit 20C, and the warm weather has affected ski resorts across the Alps.
It's not all warm in Europe, though - colder temperatures and snow are forecast in parts of Scandinavia and Moscow is expected to drop to -20C by the weekend.

 

[Annetts key]

Yeah, I watched the TV evening news that covered this as well. 19°C in Poland they said, that’s shorts and t-shirt weather and is often around the temperature of a U.K. spring or autumn day…!

 

[edwin_m]

It may also be that the weather is not cold enough to freeze the ground in Ukraine and is therefore preventing the expected offensive against the Russians.

 

[Annetts key]

Here’s a link to the Channel 4 YouTube channel with their piece on the current warm European weather.

It’s similar to the BBC News posted above.

 

[brad465]

A new year, but the same old type of excuse from Russia as to why the latest attack on themselves happened, this time it's "troops using their mobile phones":

Makiivka: Russia blames missile attack on soldiers' mobile phone use

Russia now says 89 soldiers were killed in the attack in Makiivka, in the occupied Donetsk region.

www.bbc.co.uk

Russia has said a new year missile attack that killed at least 89 Russian soldiers happened because troops were using their mobile phones.
Ukraine hit a college for conscripts in Makiivka, in the occupied Donetsk area, shortly after midnight on 1 January.
Soldiers' use of banned phones allowed the enemy to locate its target, the Russian military has now said.
While the number of people killed is unverified, it is the largest death toll acknowledged by Russia in the war.
Ukraine claims the figure is far higher, saying 400 soldiers were killed in the attack and a further 300 wounded.
Russia said that at 00:01 local time on New Year's Day, six rockets were fired from a US-made Himars rocket system at a vocational college, two of which were shot down.
The deputy commander of the regiment, Lt Col Bachurin, was among those killed, the military of defence said in a statement on Telegram in the early hours of Wednesday.
A commission is investigating the circumstances of the incident, the statement said.
But it is "already obvious" that the main cause of the attack was the presence and "mass use" of mobile phones by troops in range of Ukrainian weapons, despite this being banned, he added.
"This factor allowed the enemy to locate and determine the coordinates of the location of military personnel for a missile strike."
Officials found guilty in the investigation will be brought to justice, the statement added, and steps are being taken to prevent similar events in future.

Russia also raised the number of Russian soldiers killed in the attack to 89 - up from 63 - although there is no way of verifying how many soldiers were killed. It is extremely rare for Moscow to confirm any battlefield casualties.
The vocational college was packed with conscripts at the time - men who were among the 300,000 called up in President Vladimir Putin's partial mobilisation in September. Ammunition was also being stored close to the site, which was reduced to rubble.

 

[edwin_m]

A new year, but the same old type of excuse from Russia as to why the latest attack on themselves happened, this time it's "troops using their mobile phones":

Makiivka: Russia blames missile attack on soldiers' mobile phone use

Russia now says 89 soldiers were killed in the attack in Makiivka, in the occupied Donetsk region.

www.bbc.co.uk

Actually seems a reasonable explanation to me. The returning volunteer on the video below reckons the Russians targeted their training base in the same way.

 

[DustyBin]

Actually seems a reasonable explanation to me. The returning volunteer on the video below reckons the Russians targeted their training base in the same way.

There were a lot of reports of this early on, you’d think they’d have learnt by now. Although then again……

 

[Annetts key]

It’s an easy excuse for the Russians to use. In reality, the Ukrainians will be using any and all intelligence sources, including satellite photography, information from people on the ground, and signal intercepts.

And of course, the Russians don’t want their soldiers using mobile telephones because they don’t want photos of their actual situation or conversations about their experiences getting back to the general Russian population.

 

[Giugiaro]

This was also heavily covered in Portugal, as a consequence of the severe brainwashing that the Kremlin has subjected the Russian people to, especially those who have family fighting in Ukraine:

Soldiers' widows group calls on Putin to order major mobilisation for Ukraine war

A little known patriotic group which supports the widows of Russian soldiers has called on President Vladimir Putin to order a large-scale mobilisation of millions of men and to close the borders to ensure victory in Ukraine.

www.reuters.com

Soldiers' widows group calls on Putin to order major mobilisation for Ukraine war​

By Guy Faulconbridge
MOSCOW, Jan 3 (Reuters) - A little known patriotic group which supports the widows of Russian soldiers has called on President Vladimir Putin to order a large-scale mobilisation of millions of men and to close the borders to ensure victory in Ukraine.

Putin, Russia's 70-year-old paramount leader, is under intense pressure to deliver victory in Ukraine more than 10 months since he sent troops as part of an operation he says was intended to defend Russians in eastern Ukraine.
"We ask our President, our Supreme Commander-in-Chief, to prohibit the departure of men of military age from Russia. And we have a full moral right to do this: our husbands died protecting these men, but who will protect us if they run away?"
After ordering what he cast as a "partial mobilisation" on Sept. 21, Russia's first since World War Two, around 300,000 additional men were drafted, though several hundred thousand more Russian men fled abroad to avoid being called up.
The Kremlin did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the appeal from the widows' group. Putin said last month that there was no need for an additional mobilisation.

 

[DustyBin]

This was also heavily covered in Portugal, as a consequence of the severe brainwashing that the Kremlin has subjected the Russian people to, especially those who have family fighting in Ukraine:

Soldiers' widows group calls on Putin to order major mobilisation for Ukraine war

A little known patriotic group which supports the widows of Russian soldiers has called on President Vladimir Putin to order a large-scale mobilisation of millions of men and to close the borders to ensure victory in Ukraine.

www.reuters.com

Did this “little known patriotic group” originate from a Russian bot farm one wonders?…

 

[najaB]

Did this “little known patriotic group” originate from a Russian bot farm one wonders?…

That's likely, though I can see that some widows/mothers might have the attitude that they don't want their husbands/sons to have died "for nothing".