Here we go again-Ukraine once again

[mapuc]

What do we ordinary people know ? Do we know what's going on in Ukraine and behind the closed doors in NATO member states Parliament ?

No we do not. It's our standpoint who decide what we believe or disbelieve.

Are Ukrainian news more reliable than the Russians ?

I want to believe it is..

Just my 5 cent of thoughts on what we see, hear and read in the news.

Markus

[Skybird]

Two weeks old, a general overview. It confirms my muted impression. Russia may or may not do long term damage to itself that makes itself felt in the future, but that does mean no relief for Ukraine today.



https://www.economist.com/briefing/2...sia-or-ukraine

[Jimbuna]

Wives of Russian soldiers appeal for them to be returned home

Wives of Russian soldiers are appealing to them to be returned home, according to a video highlighted by British defence chiefs on Monday.

Troops of the 5th Separate Guards Tank Brigade, part of the Eastern Military District in Russia, were said to be “mentally and physically” exhausted from their role in the invasion of Ukraine which started nearly five months ago.

The British military chiefs stressed that the lack of “scheduled breaks” from intense fighting for Russian forces was a major issue facing Vladimir Putin’s army.

However, they did not comment on the difficulties facing Ukrainian troops which have suffered a series of defeats in the Luhansk province of the eastern Donbas region where the Russian president is focusing his military campaign.

In its latest intelligence update, the Ministry of Defence in London said: “In late June, a Russian-language media agency based in Russia’s far eastern Lake Baikal region uploaded a video in which the wives of soldiers from the Eastern Military District’s (EMD’s) 36th Combined Arms Army directly appealed to a local politician for their husbands to be returned home from service in Ukraine.

“One woman claimed that personnel of EMD’s 5th Separate Guards Tank Brigade are ‘mentally and physically’ exhausted,’ because they have been on active combat duty since the launch of the ‘special military operaton’ on 24 February 2022.

“The lack of scheduled breaks from intense combat conditions is highly likely one of the most damaging of the many personnel issues the Russian MoD is struggling to rectify amongs the deployed forces.”

The briefing added: “As of Sunday 10 July, artillery bombardments continued in the northern Donbas sector, but probably without any major territorial advances.

“Ukrainian forces continued to apply localised pressure to the Russian defensive line in North East Kherson oblast (province), also probably without achieving territorial gains.”

The US-based military think tank, the Institute for The Study of War (ISW) said that Russian forces are in the middle of a theatre-wide operational pause in Ukraine.

It added: “This operational pause has been largely characterized by Russian troops regrouping to rest, refit, and reconstitute; heavy artillery fire in critical areas to set conditions for future ground advances; and limited probing attacks to identify Ukrainian weakness and structure appropriate tactical responses.

“As ISW has previously noted, an operational pause does not mean a complete cessation of hostilities, rather that ongoing hostilities are more preparative in nature.”

Defence chiefs in Britain, the US and other allied countries are fighting an information war against Russia, which is a key part of the conflict in Ukraine, so their claims need to be treated in that context.

However, Russian claims need to be treated with huge caution given that the Kremlin does not even accept that there is a war going on in Ukraine and its denials of war crimes and killing thousands of civilians are at odds with widespread reports from the conflict zone.

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/newsl...out&li=AAnZ9Ug

[Jimbuna]

Ukraine aims to amass 'million-strong army' to recapture south, says defence minister

Ukraine plans a "million-strong army" equipped with Nato weapons to retake the south of the country from occupying Russians, the defence minister says.

Retaking the areas around the Black Sea coast was vital to the country's economy, Oleksii Reznikov said.

However, the comments are more of a rallying cry than a concrete plan, says the BBC's Joe Inwood in Kyiv.

The defence minister's remarks come as Russia makes progress in taking territory in the eastern Donbas region.

An attack on a block of flats on Sunday killed at least 22 people - with more than 20 feared buried under the rubble.

Rescuers are still looking for survivors at the site of the five-storey building in Chasiv Yar, near the city of Kramatorsk, in the Donetsk region which has been the focus of a Russian push.

In his interview with The Times newspaper, Mr Reznikov praised the UK for being "key" in the transition from providing Ukraine with Soviet-era weapons to Nato-standard air defence systems and ammunition.

He said weapons deliveries needed to be sped up.

"We need more, quickly, to save the lives of our soldiers. Each day we're waiting for howitzers, we can lose a hundred soldiers," he said.

"We have approximately 700,000 in the armed forces and when you add the national guard, police, border guard, we are around a million-strong," the defence minister said.

However, Dr Jack Watling, senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, cautioned against the figure.

"It's not a million-strong force that will be conducting a counter-attack," Mr Watling told the BBC.

"Normally you would want operational surprise when you launch a counter-attack, so announcing it publicly is partly about forcing the Russians to have to commit resources more widely to guard against this threat."

The comments come as three people were killed and 28 wounded after residential areas in the eastern city of Kharkiv were struck by Russian shells, the regional governor said.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-62118953

[Jimbuna]

[Jimbuna]

[Dargo]

Ukraine residents say goodbye to their homeland: 'The Donbas is lost, no matter which army wins'

The Ukrainian army seems no match for Russian violence in the Donetsk province, which is hemmed in on three sides. Lucrative for Russia, the area no longer seems to be, as its industry has been almost completely destroyed after eight years of war. Far behind the front lines, an excavator draws a deep, dark chasm through the rolling fields of the Donbas. The trench lies even behind Kramatorsk, Slovyansk and Bakhmut, cities that the Ukrainian army has complete control over. The army is already reckoning with their fall. Most residents in the Donbas are giving up their native land, having lived for eight years in the vicinity of the war. 'Residents want to leave, they know what's coming,' says a volunteer from an evacuation team, as he escorts people with bags to the only functioning train station.

The Russian army has begun attacking Donetsk province from three sides, after capturing the last part of Luhansk province last week. Ukraine still controls just under half of Donetsk province. If that is lost, Russia will occupy the entire Donbas. But what is there left for Russia to occupy, other than hills with gorges? According to President Putin, the "special operation" revolves around "the liberation" of Russian-speaking residents of the Donbas. But there are hardly any people left. At a bombed-out square in downtown Kramatorsk, a woman in a summer dress displays the harvest of her vegetable garden, but there are few buyers. Stores are closed, on sidewalks anti-tank crosses stand ready. Only old Lada's drive through the deserted streets - everyone with a more expensive car has left.

'I always thought I would die here, I already knew which cemetery I would end up in,' says Gennady Alekseevich, who is leaving Donbas after 76 years. The former driving instructor for heavy industry truck drivers in the Donbas is saying goodbye to his native region along with Masha, a cat he carries in a bag. 'Hang on, Masja, you have to hang on,' he whispers to the cat as he waits in the warmth for a train to the west. While the people leave, the resources stay behind. Since the 19th century, the Donbas has been an industrial area that smells of coal and chemical fumes. Gray pyramid-shaped hills of mining stone rise high above the fields with factory pipes. But lucrative Donetsk province doesn't seem to be Russia's business. Its industry is badly damaged after eight years of war. Back in 2020, a group of economists estimated that 21 billion euros would be needed for repairs, and that was before the devastation of the artillery war that Russia began in February. After the destruction of colossal factories, such as the Azovstal plant in Mariupol, the same fate threatens industrial buildings in the area that Russia is now attacking. Forty sites were attacked on Saturday, the Ukrainian military states. In the village of Chasiv Yar, at least 15 people were killed that day in a rocket attack on an apartment building. In Avdiivka, a large coking plant was shelled more than ten times. On Friday, Russian explosives hit a power plant in Svitlodarsk.

'We are doomed here,' says 77-year-old Anatoli Ivanenko, one of the last stragglers in the town of Siversk, where the bombs have been falling for weeks. 'The Donbas is lost, no matter which army wins.' From the town, you can see the clouds of smoke rising from the front. A little outside Siversk, an oil refinery caught fire several times from shelling until the Russian army took the complex and moved a little closer still. There are still unharmed companies left in Donetsk province. Near the village of Soledar is the largest salt mine in Ukraine. In Bachmoet there is a winery from the time of Stalin, with 13 million bottles of sparkling wine under the ground. And Kramatorsk boasts the near 100-year-old NKMZ, in its own words "the largest machine building factory of customized products in Europe. But even if these companies survive a Russian offensive, they will not be able to offset the devastation in the Donbas.

In the Donbas, Putin does not seem to care about people or money, but simply about land. He hinted at his imperialist ambitions last month at the celebration of the 350th anniversary of Peter the Great's birth. Putin compared himself to the 17th-century tsar and said that, like Peter the Great, he has the right to "take back" "traditionally Russian" territories. Russia's capture of the Donbas is not a certainty. Ukrainian President Zelensky said last week that heavy weapons from the West are finally functioning "at full capacity" on the front lines. The Ukrainian army said it destroyed numerous Russian ammunition depots in recent days. The Russian military says the battle for Donetsk province will become more intense in the coming period. Russia has time in Ukraine, Putin said last week. 'Everyone should know that we haven't even really started yet.'

https://www.volkskrant.nl/nieuws-ach...wint~b34362af/

[Jimbuna]

Russian natural gas supplies to Germany via the Baltic Sea pipeline Nord Stream 1 have been halted for 10 days for annual maintenance work.

But German Economy Minister Robert Habeck warned that EU countries had to be prepared in case gas shipments did not resume.

He has accused the Kremlin of using gas "as a weapon" in response to EU sanctions over the war in Ukraine.

Mr Habeck admitted Germany had become too dependent on Russian gas.

He described that as "a grave political mistake as we can see today, which we are trying to remedy as quickly as we possibly can".

He said two floating terminals for deliveries of liquefied natural gas (LNG) would be ready by the end of the year.

In mid-June Russia's state gas firm Gazprom cut gas flows through Nord Stream 1 to just 40% of the pipeline's capacity. It blamed a delay in the return of equipment being serviced by Germany's Siemens Energy.

The Canadian government says it will now return a repaired Siemens turbine to Germany for the pipeline. That move angered the Ukrainian government, which accused Canada of adjusting the sanctions imposed on Moscow "to the whims of Russia".

Canada says it is granting Siemens Canada a "time-limited and revocable permit" to send repaired turbines back to Germany, despite the sanctions.

Germany's government is worried that gas supplies could be reduced or cut permanently.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-62121702

[Catfish]

Originally Posted by Jimbuna

Russian natural gas supplies to Germany via the Baltic Sea pipeline Nord Stream 1 have been halted for 10 days for annual maintenance work. [...]
Germany's government is worried that gas supplies could be reduced or cut permanently.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-62121702

Oh no, who would have thunk!?
After all Germany says that oil and gas is bad and they wanted to cut it anyway, so they got to thank Putin, or not?
I guess this also is the main reason they do not send tanks, their exhausts are harmful to the environment. Maybe electric tanks

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by Catfish

Oh no, who would have thunk!?
After all Germany says that oil and gas is bad and they wanted to cut it anyway, so they got to thank Putin, or not?
I guess this also is the main reason they do not send tanks, their exhausts are harmful to the environment. Maybe electric tanks

Yes, sometimes I wonder why the German government doesn't take a umited stance and see it through to the end.

Heaven only knows what stance the UK will take when we get a new 'illustrious' leader.

[Jimbuna]

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Catfish

Oh no, who would have thunk!?
After all Germany says that oil and gas is bad and they wanted to cut it anyway, so they got to thank Putin, or not?
I guess this also is the main reason they do not send tanks, their exhausts are harmful to the environment. Maybe electric tanks

Best: the last German factory producing windmill rotors and blades has shut down today. From now on German energy transfomration will depend even more on deliveries from - China.

Thank God China is so much better than Russia.
80% or more of solar panels also come from China.
And ore, pre-production products for building heat pumps come from Russia and China.



Eigentlich zum Totlachen. Doofheit, dein Name ist Deutschland. Böah...


On the other hand: has France already started readjusting the ploicy to buy its nuclear fuels not from Russian Rossatom but Australia or America...?

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Jimbuna

But true also is that Ukraine's best and most experienced units have been mauled in the recent two weeks, and now are just a shadow of their former self, filled up with new unexperienced recruits and reservists, too. The loss of experei nce and competence weighs heavy, too.

[Dargo]

Originally Posted by Catfish

Oh no, who would have thunk!?
After all Germany says that oil and gas is bad and they wanted to cut it anyway, so they got to thank Putin, or not?
I guess this also is the main reason they do not send tanks, their exhausts are harmful to the environment. Maybe electric tanks

For Germany and other countries, it is not easy to cut gas there is no quick way to transport gas from other suppliers those supply lines are already on max

[mapuc]

Originally Posted by Dargo

For Germany and other countries, it is not easy to cut gas there is no quick way to transport gas from other suppliers those supply lines are already on max

Denmark has it's own Gas field Tyra It was shut down.

Some month ago the Danish government decided to reopen it, but technicians said it would take about a year to replace rusty equipment before the gas once again can flow from Tyra to Esbjerg and further out in the country.

If I remember correctly it was shut down because the Russian gas was cheaper.

Sorry I was incorrect

From Danish wiki
In 2019-2023, the field will be closed while it is being rebuilt. 50,000 tonnes of platforms are recycled in Frederikshavn. Danish politicians wanted the field reopened earlier due to high gas prices, but the operator Total E&P rejected that it is technically possible

Markus