Yeah and seemingly no casualties in the wreckage? Maybe I (thankfully) don’t know what to look for but based on the apparent damage it does not seem possible for complete crew bail outs after being on the recieving end?
Clip of what purports to be Russian special forces advancing into Kharkiv, certainly lightly armed troops with light armour (and reversing along the street, presumably to try and protect the drivers?) This definitely tallies with what seemed to happen in Kyiv where the Ukranians (and the UK MOD) claim they have “mopped up” special forces infiltrating into the city.
They certainly don’t seem to have “parked” their vehicles here and walked in, they definitely are using them as cover
But also:
And here:
Yes, they’ve got trucks and some armored cars/jeeps, but it looks like even when mobile one guy is driving and everyone else is outside cover. Sure, plenty of time to get back to cover in some situations, but not if you walk right into an urban ambush situation.
That’s a frightening notion of what one exit path for Putin might be. I hope he’s not that crazy.
Alstein
3957
It’s a strategic point, highway straight to Kiev.
As for @Strollen talking about what more can be done, our goal needs to be regime change, but it has to come from the Russian people rising up. For that we need cyberattacks, complete economic isoluation, and supplying the Ukranian with whatever they need to run a bloody insurgency that makes what we went through in Iraq look like Child’s play.
Have the Russian mothers watch their conscript children bleed. The Ukranians are going to have to be willing to be terrorists as well, make the Russians have no will to fight. These aren’t the WWII Russian defending their homeland, these are Russian conscripts invaded.
I would not be surprised if we see Russians fragging their NCOs like what we had in Vietnam. We need to make this the 2nd Russian Vietnam. (the 1st one had a big role in destroying the Soviet Union)
We also need to openly admit we’re doing this, the russians know if they attack into Poland, that’s a nuclear red line-Putin’s not suicidal, and given the instability in the US, it wouldn’t take much for Putin to think Biden is willing to risk nuclear war in order to unify America.
Biden needs to act a little unhinged.
That was what I was wondering about too: no bodies (or blood, for that matter) in or around the columns. Not that I mind: I don’t really want to see stuff like that. But you’d imagine with a carnage that severe that soldiers present within the column would be hurt as well. This raises the question: if there weren’t any soldiers there, why not take the vehicles instead of destroying them?
KevinC
3959
“There’s no way he would invade Ukraine, it would be devastating to the Russian economy. He must just be bluffing!”.
Given how that sentiment aged, it does make it a little worrying. Hard to know just how far off his rocker he is. One would hope that any nuclear orders would be ignored/refused though.
It seems so archaic to have a major power controlled by a single person. We’re all at the mercy of a single man. Sure he has oligarchs and KGB handlers but no real internal checks. In the 21st century.
Putin is reportedly putting his nuclear forces on alert in response to recent signals from the West. With regards to the title of the thread, I’m not sure Russia* could get any more evil at this point.
*the regime
Just for education: Denmark is a founding member of NATO. We’ve tried neutrality a couple of times, with less than stellar results.
In fairness to Sweden and Finland, they used to spend a lot more on their military - I don’t know if it’s the case today, but Finland used to have the harshest mandatory military service in Scandinavia - which is why joining NATO is maybe not entirely a formality, but also hasn’t been expressly necessary.
There’s no question where their loyalties lie, and up until the Trump presidency, I think everyone was convinced that NATO would come to their aid in the event of an attack, so joining NATO would just be waving a red flag at the Russians.
Things have obviously changed since.
Denmark is also in a special position, because we control the straits to the Atlantic used by the Russian Baltic Fleet (we were the first to spot the suspicious cargo ships heading to Cuba with a cargo full of nukes, once upon a time) so we are also in a far more vulnerable position than Finland or Sweden.
I think some of those vehicles — further along that column — have clearly been engaged and destroyed by some kind of anti-tank weapon. The ‘whole’ ones look like the crew abandoned them to take cover elsewhere. You don’t see any prisoners in that video, which suggests they probably fled. Hard to say from what little we can see there.
There will be some sort of talks today:
Quaro
3965
“Drop the sanctions, trade with me, or I’ll attack you.” is not exactly persuasive.
Soma
3966
I don’t know what Putin is saying. Is he saying “if you don’t let me have Ukraine, I’ll use nukes on NATO countries”?
He is waving a big stick because he’s upset by our response.
But it’s a very big, and very stupid stick to wave.
I don’t think it’s a lot different than his (more veiled) nuclear threat from last week. He’s going to keep reminding the world that Russia has nuclear weapons and might use them.
Soma
3969
Is it more of the same, or is it an escalation? Because it sounds like he is escalating. From veiled threat to actual threat.
Quaro
3970
He specifically references the sanctions. It’s like DO BUSINESS WITH ME OR I WILL ATTACK YOU? Doesn’t that make me less likely to want to do any deal with a Russian company?
That’s exactly it. It’s a deliberate overreaction.
But at what point the rest of the leadership in Russia feels that’s enough?
We already have two oligarchs talking openly against the war. He has miscalculated and needs an out (preferably through a window, but a face-saving out could work too).
I just don’t see how he recovers from this within Russia.
