Russian Invasion of Ukraine

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Re: Russian Invasion of Ukraine

#331

Post by ponchi101 »

Or it ends up that NATO hackers are better than what we thought, and NATO has hacked Russian comms.
We always hear about how the Russians, the Chinese or the North Koreans hack western sites. We never hear about Americans hacking Russians, or Europeans hacking the Chinese, or anything like that. And there is no way I am going to believe that the dear little souls at the NSA/CIA/FBI letter soup, or the altar boys at the MI5/MI6/BND/MOSSAD, never get involved in cyber-operations. So maybe they have been playing low for years and have better channels into Russian military activities than we think.
Like the new Q in the James Bond movies. He can do more damage in one morning from his bed, still in his pajamas, before he has his morning tea and bagel, than 007 with his PPK.
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Re: Russian Invasion of Ukraine

#332

Post by meganfernandez »

ponchi101 wrote:Or it ends up that NATO hackers are better than what we thought, and NATO has hacked Russian comms.
We always hear about how the Russians, the Chinese or the North Koreans hack western sites. We never hear about Americans hacking Russians, or Europeans hacking the Chinese, or anything like that. And there is no way I am going to believe that the dear little souls at the NSA/CIA/FBI letter soup, or the altar boys at the MI5/MI6/BND/MOSSAD, never get involved in cyber-operations. So maybe they have been playing low for years and have better channels into Russian military activities than we think.
Like the new Q in the James Bond movies. He can do more damage in one morning from his bed, still in his pajamas, before he has his morning tea and bagel, than 007 with his PPK.
“Sometimes a trigger has to be pulled. Or not pulled. Hard to know which in your pajamas.” :)

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Re: Russian Invasion of Ukraine

#333

Post by ti-amie »

Meanwhile it seems that Western journalists have stopped posting Tweets saying "THERE ARE PEOPLE HOLED UP HERE" putting bulls eyes on such places. That is what happened in Mariupol (sp).
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Re: Russian Invasion of Ukraine

#334

Post by mmmm8 »

ponchi101 wrote: Sun May 01, 2022 4:23 pm Or it ends up that NATO hackers are better than what we thought, and NATO has hacked Russian comms.
We always hear about how the Russians, the Chinese or the North Koreans hack western sites. We never hear about Americans hacking Russians, or Europeans hacking the Chinese, or anything like that. And there is no way I am going to believe that the dear little souls at the NSA/CIA/FBI letter soup, or the altar boys at the MI5/MI6/BND/MOSSAD, never get involved in cyber-operations. So maybe they have been playing low for years and have better channels into Russian military activities than we think.
Like the new Q in the James Bond movies. He can do more damage in one morning from his bed, still in his pajamas, before he has his morning tea and bagel, than 007 with his PPK.
Don't forget the Ukrainian hackers. Don't know so much about state sponsorships there I'm sure many are volunteering their skills.
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Re: Russian Invasion of Ukraine

#335

Post by ponchi101 »

Absolutely. By now, I don't think it would be inaccurate to describe Ukraine as something that, at a very minimum, is part of NATO.
Sure, they are not married, but they meet every day at the same café. 6:30, and everybody knows.
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Re: Russian Invasion of Ukraine

#336

Post by mick1303 »

ponchi101 wrote: Mon May 02, 2022 8:29 pm Absolutely. By now, I don't think it would be inaccurate to describe Ukraine as something that, at a very minimum, is part of NATO.
Sure, they are not married, but they meet every day at the same café. 6:30, and everybody knows.
I'm not sure this is an accurate analogy. If that lady in question is assaulted by another man, your man, married or not, will go outside and clean his clock. Not just give his lady pepper-spray.
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Re: Russian Invasion of Ukraine

#337

Post by Suliso »

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Re: Russian Invasion of Ukraine

#338

Post by ti-amie »



I dunno but why would any newspaper publish this during a war?
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Re: Russian Invasion of Ukraine

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Post by ponchi101 »

Because YOU are not at war? :?
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Re: Russian Invasion of Ukraine

#340

Post by Suliso »

What a funny "coincidence" that Forbes posted the article below two days ago. Now it seems confirmed that the same ship (or one of the sister ships) is on fire some 65 nautical miles south of Odessa. The surprising part for me is that including this ship there are only three (!!!) large surface ships left in the Russian Black sea fleet and no way of getting any more. That's not counting landing ships, minesweepers, patrol boats and submarines.

The Russian Frigate ‘Admiral Makarov’ Might Be The Juiciest Target In The Black Sea

After the dramatic sinking of the missile-cruiser Moskva by a Ukrainian missile battery on April 14, the Russian Black Sea Fleet is down to just three major surface combatants. The best and most important of them might be the new missile-frigate Admiral Makarov.

And that makes the 409-foot Admiral Makarov perhaps the most valuable target for Ukrainian missile crews and drone operators. We don’t know exactly how of its best Neptune anti-ship missiles the Ukrainian navy has left or whether Kyiv’s TB-2 drones are hunting for the Russian frigate or her Black Sea sisters.

In any event, it’s apparent Russian fleet commanders appreciate the danger. There’s evidence Admiral Makarov’s skipper has been taking pains to keep her away from the Ukrainian coast.

Distance could help to protect Admiral Makarov. But that same distance precludes the frigate from actually doing her job, protecting the Black Sea Fleet’s other vessels from air- and missile-attack.

Commissioned in 2017, Admiral Makarov is the third, last and most modern vessel in her class. All three of the Admiral Grigorovich-class frigates belong to the Black Sea Fleet. Armed with 24 Buk medium-range surface-to-air missiles and eight Kalibr cruise missiles, all in vertical cells, the frigates can escort other vessels and also attack targets on land.

Admiral Makarov and her sisters are not big ships. Displacing just 4,000 tons of water and accommodating 200 crew, they’re less than half the size of the U.S. Navy’s main surface combatants, the Arleigh Burke-class destroyers.

But the frigates are about as big as Russia can make a non-nuclear surface combatant these days, for reasons that—ironically—have everything to do with the current war. Throughout the Soviet era and for years after the USSR’s collapse, Russia acquired its big marine engines from Ukraine.

After Russia in 2014 invaded and annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula—including the port of Sevastopol where Admiral Makarov now is based—Kyiv barred certain exports to Russia, including the marine engines Russia requires for any fast, conventional vessel displacing more than 5,000 tons or so.

Which is to say, after 2014 the Russian navy struggled to build big warships. That made it impossible to replace, like for like, the biggest Soviet-vintage ships such as Moskva, which displaced 12,000 tons.

Moskva was the flagship of the Black Sea Fleet. She was old and hadn’t gotten a lot of major updates through her long service beginning in 1983. But she was stacked with missiles: 16 Vulkan anti-ship missiles, 64 S-300 long-range surface-to-air missiles and 40 Osa missiles for short-range air-defense.

All those missiles couldn’t save Moskva when a Ukrainian battery on land, perhaps near the strategic port of Odessa, put two Neptune missiles in her port side. She burned, then sank while under tow, taking with her potentially scores of her 500 sailors.

Moskva’s sinking, along with the earlier destruction of the Black Sea Fleet landing ship Saratov following an apparent hit by a Ukrainian ballistic missile, spooked fleet commanders. They pulled back the surviving surface ships.

Many, including one Admiral Grigorovich-class frigate—it’s not clear which—were moored in Sevastopol as recently as Thursday. When the warships do sail from Crimea, they tend to stay 100 miles or so from the Ukrainian coast, potentially keeping them beyond the range of Kyiv’s Neptunes.

Keeping at a safe distance meant the frigates apparently were in no position to help when the Ukrainian navy last week mounted a furious drone assault on the Russian garrison on Snake Island. The tiny hunk of rock, 25 miles off the coast of southwestern Ukraine, helped Kyiv assert some control over the western Black Sea—until the Russians captured it on the first full day of the current war on Feb. 24.

Ukrainian TB-2 drones knocked out Russian air-defenses on the island then went hunting deeper at sea. On Monday, a TB-2 struck two Russian Raptor-class patrol boats with laser-guided missiles, heavily damaging if not destroying both of the 55-foot boats as they motored toward Snake Island.

Without the protection of a frigate, the Raptors were sitting ducks. In that sense, sinking Moskva—and scaring off the rest of the Black Sea Fleet’s major combatants—was as good as sinking the frigates, too. It doesn’t matter that Russia still has three powerful warships in the Black Sea if those ships can’t, or won’t, risk approaching the Ukrainian coast.

Still, the Ukrainians undoubtedly would love to get a shot at Admiral Makarov and her sisters. On Thursday there were rumors they’d landed a blow with a Neptune and the frigate was on fire. There was no immediate evidence to back up the rumors.

Admiral Makarov apparently still sails. But not in harm’s way.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2 ... 878d1a74d5
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Re: Russian Invasion of Ukraine

#341

Post by Suliso »

Maps with the current situation on the major fronts from a guy I follow on TW (has good reputation of accuracy)

First map is of Kharkiv area (NE) where Ukrainians are currently on a counterattack

Image

The second is of Donbas theatre where Russians are concentrating their heaviest attack

Image

Relatively quiet on the Southern front

Image

Also not so much in Odesa direction. Likely neither country has enough army in the area to break through right now.

Image

Overall tactical assessment is that Russia will need to move extra units to Kharkiv front to prevent Ukrainians threatening supply lines to Donbas.
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Re: Russian Invasion of Ukraine

#342

Post by Deuce »

There has been some discussion here and elsewhere about Putin's health, with rumours claiming that he's quite ill.

You can add this to the speculation...
But just because a Russian oligarch was recorded saying it does not necessarily mean that it's true, of course - the recording could well be an arranged, deliberate lie...

Putin 'Very Ill With Blood Cancer'...

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Re: Russian Invasion of Ukraine

#343

Post by ti-amie »



Who knows if this is real or not?
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Re: Russian Invasion of Ukraine

#344

Post by Deuce »

This is a ban of a Russian that I can agree with.
Though the kid has perhaps believed the Russian propaganda (another word for BS), and is ignorant of the reality of the invasion, this still can't go unpunished.
I hope someone educates him about the reality of the situation.

Russian Gymnast Given One Year Ban...

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Re: Russian Invasion of Ukraine

#345

Post by ponchi101 »

But dictators are dictators. Erdogan, another humongous POS in world politics, will demand conditions for Sweden and Finland to join NATO. Most likely, extradition of people he sees as terrorists (nothing more than Kurdish freedom fighters) from those countries.
Of course, Turkey was a democracy in the past, but I wonder if it is time for NATO to make that clear. In order to join, you have to be one. It would mean the expulsion of Turkey from the alliance (and they hold the key to the Black Sea, straddling the Bosporus) but one has to wonder who offers more advantaged to the alliance.
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