Ukraine's navy isn't doing too bad considering that they don't have any large ships.There are unconfirmed reports on a number of news sites that another Ropucha-class landing ship has been severely damaged or destroyed.
Ukraine's navy isn't doing too bad considering that they don't have any large ships.There are unconfirmed reports on a number of news sites that another Ropucha-class landing ship has been severely damaged or destroyed.
they are doing well for a nation with no navyUkraine's navy isn't doing too bad considering that they don't have any large ships.
They do have a navy, but they scuttled their only large ship at the start of the war. Now they have some small coastal patrol boats and drones. Lots of drones.they are doing well for a nation with no navy
Russia's most significant opposition leader for the past decade, Alexei Navalny, has died in prison inside the Arctic Circle, Russian news agencies report, quoting the prison service.
Whatever the cause, what's most surprising is he lived as long as he did.Putin critic Alexei Navalny dies in Arctic Circle jail, says Russia
Jailed Russian politician Alexei Navalny has died in a penal colony, the country's prison service says.www.bbc.co.uk
Presumably not of natural causes either.
Don't know what you mean by that. Arsenic is natural, as are cyanide and polonium.Presumably not of natural causes either.
Ironic that here when anyone dies, it's blamed on the vaccine. In Russia every death is natural causes... including falls out of windows.Thing is, he could have genuinely died of natural causes or an accident but no one will believe it anyway.
Unless the vaccine is from Russia, suddenlyIronic that here when anyone dies, it's blamed on the vaccine. In Russia every death is natural causes... including falls out of windows.
Tests to be carried out on Navalny's body for two weeks - spokeswoman
Russian authorities continue to block access to the body of Alexei Navalny as they plan to carry out tests for two more weeks, his spokeswoman says.
Kira Yarmysh posted on social media that "investigators have told Alexei's lawyers and mother that they will not hand over the body".
"Some sort of 'chemical examination" will be carried out on him for another 14 days, she wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
Yarmysh has previously said that Navalny's mother and lawyers have been denied entry to a morgue where they had been told his body was being kept.
I assume you're saying this is what shot down the A-50 according to reports, rather than that system was what was shot at.There is some "information" that it was a modified/upgraded S200 anti-aircraft missile system.
If either side have managed to get an S-200 to fly, that would be newsworthy!I assume you're saying this is what shot down the A-50 according to reports, rather than that system was what was shot at.
Alexei Navalny was about to be freed in a prisoner swap when he died, according to his ally Maria Pevchikh.
She said the Russian opposition leader was going to be exchanged for Vadim Krasikov, a Russian hitman who is serving a life sentence for murder in Germany.
Two US citizens currently held in Russia were also going to be part of the deal, Ms Pevchikh claimed.
She added that negotiations were at their final stage on 15 February.
The next day, Mr Navalny died in his cell in the prison colony in Siberia where he was being held on a 19-year sentence over charges that were widely seen as politically motivated. Prison officials said the 47-year-old had fallen ill following a "walk".
In a video posted on Mr Navalny's YouTube channel, Ms Pevchikh, who is the chairwoman of his Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK), said negotiations for a prisoner swap had been under way for two years.
She added that after the start of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 "it was clear that Putin would stop at nothing" and that Mr Navalny "had to be freed from jail at any cost, and urgently".
According to Ms Pevchik, Mr Navalny was going to be freed under a humanitarian exchange and American and German officials were involved in the talks.
The process finally resulted in a concrete plan for a prisoner swap in December, she said.
Vadim Krasikov - a Russian who was found guilty of shooting former Chechen rebel commander Zelimkhan Khangoshvili in the head at close range in Germany in 2019 - was going to be part of the deal.
Two US nationals currently held in Russia were also going to be exchanged, Ms Pevchikh said, although she did not name them.
According to Ms Pevchikh, Russian President Vladimir Putin changed his mind at the last minute. She said he "could not tolerate Navalny being free" - and since there was an agreement "in principle" for Krasikov's freeing, Mr Putin decided to "just get rid of the bargaining chip".
"Putin has gone mad with hatred for Navalny," Ms Pevchikh said. "He knows Navalny could've defeated him."
A spokesperson for the German government said on Monday that the government "cannot comment on the reports" of a planned prisoner swap at this time.
Within an hour of publication, Ms Pevchikh's video had had hundreds of thousands of views.
The Kremlin has not yet reacted to the claims put forward by Ms Pevchikh, but President Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov has previously said allegations of government involvement into Navalny's death were "absurd".
Ironic that here when anyone dies, it's blamed on the vaccine. In Russia every death is natural causes... including falls out of windows.
It's more or less a stalemate at the moment, but there's a real chance that Ukraine will be forced to retreat because they don't have enough munitions to either maintain the status quo or make any advances. At lot of this depends on what happens in the US Congress over the next few weeks.Is Russia wining the war currently ? or Ukraine? Stalemate?
It's more or less a stalemate at the moment, but there's a real chance that Ukraine will be forced to retreat because they don't have enough munitions to either maintain the status quo or make any advances. At lot of this depends on what happens in the US Congress over the next few weeks.
Speculation I've seen is that from time to time they borrow a Patriot system from urban defence and bring it near the front line where the aircraft dropping glide bombs etc from well within occupied territory are within range. This would explain why multiple aircraft are downed in a short period, then none for a while. But even this is dependent on external support, though I believe a Patriot production line is being set up in Germany.The situation on the ground is tough for Ukraine at present as you say. They do however appear to be having considerable success in the air, with Russian aircraft losses being reported more-or-less daily. I should add that these are largely unconfirmed (unless it's something like an A-50), but the sources I've seen have proven to be reliable in the past. What exactly is going on seems unclear; either the Russians are becoming increasingly reckless, or Ukraine has changed it's tactics or possibly equipment. Su-34s in particular are dropping like flies apparently.
Well, the USSR was in Afghanistan for 9 years.Is Russia wining the war currently ? or Ukraine? Stalemate? What will the reasons for the 2 parties to get to a negotiated peace (if ever)? Or like WW1 is it just going to go on and on year on year with endless slaughter and no real difference accomplished strategically for either side?
Speculation I've seen is that from time to time they borrow a Patriot system from urban defence and bring it near the front line where the aircraft dropping glide bombs etc from well within occupied territory are within range. This would explain why multiple aircraft are downed in a short period, then none for a while. But even this is dependent on external support, though I believe a Patriot production line is being set up in Germany.
Is Russia wining the war currently ? or Ukraine? Stalemate?
What will the reasons for the 2 parties to get to a negotiated peace (if ever)?
Or like WW1 is it just going to go on and on year on year with endless slaughter and no real difference accomplished strategically for either side?
The point about 1918 was that it represented significant changes of tactics., breaking the stalemates of the previous few years. The criticism, IMHO justified, is of generals (especially Allied) who pursued a strategy of attrition.Russia is enjoying local successes (at great cost) at the moment but the overall picture remains one of general stalemate though pressure is high on Ukraine due to a lack of artillery in particular caused by the Republicans in the House of Representatives blocking additional military aid. Aid remains substantial, particularly from Europe recently, but only the US at present has the depth of magazines and production to supply what Ukraine needs most urgently.
It would be nice, after two years, to see more munitions production in Europe and there are moves in the right direction but its painfully and, to be honest, downright embarrassing. Russia is by itself out producing Europe despite having an economy a fraction the size of Europe, we should be able to beat their production of vital war supplies without breaking a sweat. And yet here we are unable to do so.
Well that's the million dollar question isn't it? I suspect Putin feels no particular need, at the moment, to negotiate a settlement. He might be willing to do so if they can fully secure the illegally annexed territories in eastern Ukraine (perhaps excluding the parts of Kherson oblast that are on the other side of the Dnipro river) but I certainly wouldn't put money on it. I'm not sure what would draw Ukraine to the table as any scenario I can see would mean them coming to the table from a terribly weak position meaning that it would be more likely for Putin to consider it an opportunity to press for more rather than settle.
In any event, any peace deal on Russian terms would only ever be a temporary pause in hostilities before a resumption at some point in the future and would put paid to any idea that territorial disputes should be settled by force of arms. Russia's reward for invading another country and killing thousands, dehousing thousands more, raping thousands, committing uncounted war crimes, abducting children and so on and so on is territory. I'm far from convinced that that is a sensible thing to be encouraged.
The war is going to end at the negotiating table for sure. It's not Best way of ensuring a positive outcome is to arm Ukraine to the teeth and allow them to force Russia to the table via battlefield success and then any concessions that Ukraine may choose to make would be of their own doing.
I'm not entirely convinced by this characterisation of World War One as an aside. It is a view which has been popularised by some of the war poets, some post World War 2 historians and perhaps most commonly, Blackadder Goes Forth (which is tremendous but not necessarily good history...). This is not to dispute that the loss of life was extraordinary and lessons that should have been learned earlier were not properly inculcated as quickly as they should have been. But endless slaughter with no real difference accomplished strategically?
The war ended in 1918 with the near total defeat of the German Army in the field by the Allies reversing the gains that the Germans had made both earlier in 1918 during their own Spring Offensive but even recapturing areas which had fallen back in 1914. If the war had gone on into 1919 the Allies would have been pressing deep into Germany proper. Again there were utter travesties, day one of the Somme, Passchendaele (especially egregious as they had the perfect example of how to conduct battles in the preparatory attack at Battle of Messines), the ludicrous numbers of battles at Isonzo, to name a few. But the whole war? The popular conception of World War One has become that they dug a set of trenches and machine gunned each other for four years but its a far more complex conflict than that.
According to some random bloke on YouTube the radar can be separate from the launcher, which apparently (not sure how) makes it more difficult for Russian pilots to determine that the missile is aimed at them. This probably doesn't mean they can leave the radar in Kyiv.I think that’s the most likely (if least “interesting”) explanation.
Would they need to move the whole system, or could the launcher be brought forward and the rest kept safely away from the front line? (I’m presuming the radar coverage exceeds the range of the missiles here, or there’d be little point!).
With the caveat that I'm certainly not an expert here, I believe the static nature of the Western Front was because defensive measures and weapons (such as trenches and machine guns) could mostly nullify the offensive ones available at the time. This changed somewhat with the advent of the tank, but I believe what was more important was America entering the war. This triggered the Germans to launch an offensive trying to strike a decisive blow before the extra resources arrived on the Allied side, which they could not follow through. Meanwhile in the east, Russia suffered a resolution and accepted German terms to end the conflict.The point about 1918 was that it represented significant changes of tactics., breaking the stalemates of the previous few years. The criticism, IMHO justified, is of generals (especially Allied) who pursued a strategy of attrition.