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Ukrainian Counteroffensive
The Ukrainians have started the counteroffensive. We don’t have solid information on how it is going in any specific way, but one key indicator is the Russian response: they blew up a major dam (and thus its 351MW generator), endangering the nuclear power stations that rely on it for cooling water. This suggests desperate panic and a “burn it all down” mindset.
Even Russia’s erstwhile allies are licking their chops. The lapdog who runs Belarus? He says he wants part of Russia. All those predictions I have been making about Russia being carved up by separatists within and invaders without? I think they will come true. Russia is ridiculously weak and powerless. Totalitarian states must have the credible threat of force to retain power. If you rely on Might to Define Right, but you no longer have the former…
Russia appears to be breaking things out of pure spite. After all, the dam was the source of Crimea’s fresh water, and now Crimea has none. Not too smart. If a radioactive cloud emerges from the huge nuclear facility, Russia is downwind.
Things might start happening VERY quickly now.
Published in General
You’ll believe anything that you like, won’t you?
You have no idea whether these claims are genuine. They are tweets, for crying out loud.
I don’t know who blew up the dam. Why are you so confident?
Sorry to come across as annoyed. This sort of thing is annoying. Time after time after time, people fall for initial reports of complicated events, whether it’s Michael Brown or Russian Collusion or George Floyd or January 6 or something in Ukraine.
I wouldn’t say Russia is “ridiculously weak” or European countries would not have sunk all this effort into helping Ukraine. Nor would Russia have held up with all the world has given Ukraine to defend herself, but I am hopeful that we are seeing the beginning of the end of the Russia invasion and devastation of Ukraine.
Should the “not” that I put in bold be deleted?
They would surely destroy it rather than facing losing it. Putin wants to turn any Ukrainian territory he does not control into a moonscape.
I’m sorry, that was a typo from my initial convoluted syntax. I’ll correct, thank you.
Have any of you seen reports that Australia is going to provide Ukraine F/A-18 Hornet fighter jets?
I suppose these F/A-18 Hornets differ somewhat from the F-16s that the Netherlands is going to provide to Ukraine?
Back on October 20, last year, Zelensky said that the Putin would likely sabotage the Kakhovka dam and requested that the dam be placed under international protection. But this didn’t happen and now we see that Zelensky’s prediction that Putin would blow up the dam has come true.
The Ukrainians are getting absolutely slaughtered in this war and are desperate to bring NATO totally into the war to save themselves. That is why they recklessly attacked inside Russia and why they blew up this dam.
There is absolutely no reason and no strategic gain for Russia to blow up this dam but there are many reasons for the desperate Zelensky to do it. Ukraine is running out of ammo and needs to soon change the dynamics of this war or they will be wiped out. We won’t be giving them any tanks or F16s anytime soon so they will be terribly outnumbered and outgunned for the foreseeable future.
IWe , you have fallen for the propaganda con laid by Senile Joe and his Totalitarian cronies who want to enslave us. Please explain why the Biden Administration which lies about virtually everything else but is telling the truth about the War.
The Biden Crime Family is getting nervous because they can see a hellacious defeat coming in Ukraine and will do anything to avoid having to defend such a defeat in the next election.
https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/retired-raaf-fighter-jets-could-be-sent-to-ukraine-20230605-p5de0h
Tweets can be true or false. But they are at least checkable.
The US government has said Russia has blown it up.
Russians who are in a position to know, have said Russians blew it up.
Eye witnesses heard and saw no missiles or incoming fire.
I have no idea what constitutes evidence in your mind.
Yes – two entirely different aircraft types.
must be more from zero hedge….
“According to an assessment collated by the U.S. Defence Intelligence Agency, Russia has suffered 189,500-223,000 total casualties, including 35,500-43,000 killed in action and 154,000-180,000 wounded.
Ukraine has suffered 124,500-131,000 total casualties, including 15,500-17,500 killed in action and 109,000-113,500 wounded in action’
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraine-war-already-with-up-354000-casualties-likely-drag-us-documents-2023-04-12/
if Ukraine is being “totally slaughtered” what superlative do you apply to the greater deaths among the Russian soldiers?
but no doubt you claim that is the deep state cabal pushing these numbers…
While you have fallen for Putin’s propaganda who wants to enslave us…..
Oooh, contingency plans!
Imagine what goes through her mind when she’s told that her plan “Threshold” has been activated! (Wait for it… but it’s at the 4 minute point.)
iWe is wrong sometimes. Maybe here. But he didn’t fall for the propaganda. He’s thinking for himself.
I’m pretty sure he’s not falling for any Putinish propaganda himself. It’s his own thinking that’s against the Deep State in all its follies.
It’s foolish to think the “Deep State” is always lying. They’ll tell the truth if it serves their interests. Otherwise, they lie.
No, they haven’t.
“The Biden administration is still evaluating what occurred at the dam in Ukraine, State Department deputy spokesman Vedant Patel said Tuesday.
“As our colleagues at the White House said, we have seen reports that Russia was responsible for the explosion at the dam, which Russian forces took illegally last year, and we have been continuing to monitor. We can’t say conclusively what happened at this point,” Patel told reporters at the daily press briefing in Washington.
Patel echoed an earlier White House message and did not definitively say that Russia is responsible for what occurred, …”.
… and …
“President Joe Biden’s administration “cannot say conclusively” who was responsible for the massive breach at the Kakhovka dam in southern Ukraine, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters at the White House on Tuesday.
“We’re doing the best we can to assess” reports that Russia was the culprit, Kirby told reporters in the White House briefing room.”
Links:
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/live-blog/khakovka-dam-live-updates-ukraine-russia-blew-up-kherson-rcna87855#rcrd13610
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/live-blog/khakovka-dam-live-updates-ukraine-russia-blew-up-kherson-rcna87855#rcrd13608
More accurately, I reported they said it when they did.
And then Kirby walked it back to “assessing.”
Please explain how you would go about checking whether Yehor Guzenko is:
No, you just reported what NBC said about what they were purportedly told by a couple of unnamed officials. That in no way equates to “The US government has said Russia has blown it up”.
It seems to me that everyone in power is getting wealthy, why would should we expect the leaders to worry about the people who are dying or funding this war enough to end it? Lindsay Graham is typical. Many pay while a few benefit, so things go on and on. We had 2 decades in Afghanistan, with lots of cost, little improvement, and hardly any political opposition.
Could you ever be shown that withdrawing from Afghanistan may – and possibly already has – cost more than staying? Or would you just refuse to acknowledge that no matter what evidence was presented?
Also, we should take a step back and realize that dozens of countries are supplying various forms of assistance to Ukraine. It isn’t just the United States that is doing this.
Tucker Carlson’s inaugural Twitter video is up, and its first few minutes addresses the dam collapse. Enjoy, all.
Here is something from a press conference at the White House:
REPORTER: Quick one on Lavrov and his comments on F-16 fighter jets. He said that U.S. built F-16 fighter jets can accommodate nuclear weapons and warned that supplying Kyiv with them will escalate the conflict further. Do you have a response?
KIRBY: The first thing I would say to Mister Lavrov is: If you’re worried about Ukrainian military capabilities, then you should take your troops and leave Ukraine.
More like 1938-39. It was called War Plan Crimson, and was a subset of War Plan Red. I am also sure that after WWII the US military had plans for operations in Canada assuming a Soviet invasion of Alaska and Canada.
From the Washington Post:
Here’s a good survey article on the dam’s destruction by the Guardian (yeah, I know). Scroll down for a comprehensive map of Russian fortifications derived from satellite data by the OSInt community:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/06/visual-guide-collapse-ukraine-nova-kakhovka-dam
Current info on whodunit:
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/live-blog/khakovka-dam-live-updates-ukraine-russia-blew-up-kherson-rcna87855#rcrd13603
I assume that translates to ‘sanitizing the intelligence for sources and methods while not leaving it so gutted that it looks unconvincing / fabricated.’
Method and opportunity point to Russia IMO, but 48 hour rule should certainly apply.