A place for aggregated discussions of a possible conflict, it’s implications and effects, news updates and personal accounts if any. If the expected conflict kicks off, I will change the title but the function will stay the same.
Marjorie Taylor Greene: ‘Under Republicans, not another penny will go to Ukraine’
I'm not saying it will happen, but that lady is WAY closer to representing the beating heart of the Republican constituency. I remain resolute that thinking nothing will change for Ukraine's funding after Election Day is an incredibly kind reading of the GOP.
Horrible human being. Exhibit A
CNN
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Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a law to conscript citizens with unexpunged or outstanding convictions for murder, robbery, larceny, drug trafficking and other serious crimes under the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation to be called up for military service to mobilize.
Ukraine war: Kyiv Mayor Klitschko warns of evacuations if power lost
Kyiv residents should be prepared to leave the city if there is a total loss of power, its mayor has said.
In recent weeks millions of Ukrainians have intermittently been left without electricity and water, as Russian air strikes target vital infrastructure.
Rolling power cuts are also in place to avoid overloads and to allow for repairs.
Some 40% of Ukraine's energy system has been damaged or destroyed by Russian attacks on power plants and lines.
Another city official has warned that, in the case of a total blackout, water supply and sewage would also stop working.
Gonna be a very, very long winter in Ukraine.
Gonna be a very, very long winter in Ukraine.
It will.
But it's going to be an even longer winter for Russian forces who are essentially going to be primitive camping with very limited supplies for the next, oh, five months.
At some point they'll be making the choice between building a fire to not freeze to death and having a drone see the smoke and drop a 40mm grenade on them.
Prederick wrote:Gonna be a very, very long winter in Ukraine.
It will.
But it's going to be an even longer winter for Russian forces who are essentially going to be primitive camping with very limited supplies for the next, oh, five months.
At some point they'll be making the choice between building a fire to not freeze to death and having a drone see the smoke and drop a 40mm grenade on them.
I have not seen them dropping 40mm. I’ve only s en them dropping 82mm mortar bombs.
US says Zelenskiy risks allies’ ‘Ukraine fatigue’ if he rejects Russia talks – report
Officials in Washington have warned that “Ukraine fatigue” among allies could worsen if Kyiv continues to be closed to negotiations, the Washington Post reported. US officials told the paper that Ukraine’s position on negotiations with Russia is wearing thin among allies who are worried about the economic effects of a protracted war.
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has said Ukraine is only prepared to enter negotiations with Russia if its troops leave all parts of Ukraine, including Crimea and the eastern areas of the Donbas, de facto controlled by Russia since 2014, and if those Russians who have committed crimes in Ukraine face trial.
Zelenskiy also made clear that he would not hold negotiations with the current Russian leadership. Last month, he signed a decree specifying that Ukraine would only negotiate with a Russian president who has succeeded Vladimir Putin.
I wonder if they are trying to warn Zelenskiy that if the mid-terms go towards the GOP then support will likely be withdrawn.
Who are these officials?
And are those officials aware RUS is just going to use any pause to prep for round 2?
Have any of these officials negotiated anything before in their life?
Republicans
Hahaha. Yeah, fair enough. I keep thinking people in positions of power want to find the path forward that advances the common good, not just do what's in their own selfish interest.
Lol at me.
Air Force insists penis-shaped flight path aimed at Russian base in Syria was not intentional
Frankly, punish the pilots if it wasn't.
‘We were completely exposed’: Russian conscripts say hundreds killed in attack
Hours after Aleksei Agafonov arrived in the Luhansk region on 1 November as part of a battalion of new conscripts, his unit were handed shovels and ordered to dig trenches throughout the night.
Their digging, which they took turns to do because of the lack of available shovels, was abruptly interrupted in the early hours of the next day as Ukrainian artillery lit up the sky and shells started raining down on Agafonov and his unit.
“A Ukrainian drone first flew over us, and after that their artillery started to pound us for hours and hours, nonstop,” Agafonov, who survived the shelling, told the Guardian in a phone interview on Monday.
“I saw men being ripped apart in front of me, most of our unit is gone, destroyed. It was hell,” he said, adding that his unit’s commanders abandoned them just before the shelling started.
That's an old and busted story, Pred. 
The new hotness is half a BTG of trained Russian marines--not raw meat mobiks--getting wiped out in Pavlivka over the past couple of days and the survivors pleading with a Russian governor to open an inquiry into what happened and even prosecute Russian officers for their incompetence in planning and executing the attack.
That's resulted in the governor saying the marines were liars, that he trusts the officers, and, while there were casualties, the numbers the marines said were "considerably exaggerated."
But, seriously, Russian causalities and the absolutely callous treatment of the mobiks is increasingly going to be an issue for Putin. The Russians have been basically losing just about an entire BTG of men each and every day for the past couple of weeks because they're flooding the front with completely untrained personnel.
There's been multiple reports of commanders stripping and imprisoning mobiks in basements because they retreated from the front line after getting smashed by Ukrainian artillery. They're being told they'll stay locked up without food until they agree to go back on the front line.
And the mobiks who haven't been sent to Ukraine have essentially been abandoned by the Russian government. There are groups of hundreds of mobilized men who have been given no food or shelter and certainly no training. Hell, there was nearly a riot the other day in Kazan with nearly 2,000 soldiers accosting their commanding general--who was sh*tfaced--because the conditions in their camp were so bad they weren't even being provided basic sanitation.
I know the Russian government can crack down on news of this, but when you have hundreds of thousands of people mobilized stories are going to get out. Stories of how callously their lives are being tossed away. Stories of continual military losses. Stories of incredibly poor treatment as well as a complete lack of equipment and training.
And on top of all of this there's been an increasing amount of talk about how the Russian government isn't making good on its promises to pay the mobiks or even contract soldiers. Soldiers are being paid a fraction of what they were promised or simply not being paid at all. That's a lot of betrayal to absorb, doubly so if you were the breadwinner for your family and got mobilized.
The Russian government can crack down until they can't. Their economy has lost all these workers and they still have to keep a bunch of state police ready to keep folks in line. The money won't last forever.
The Russian government can crack down until they can't. Their economy has lost all these workers and they still have to keep a bunch of state police ready to keep folks in line. The money won't last forever.
If oil goes below $30 barrel, Russia goes into revolution and a few million people die.
Wonder if they still have the wood-fired armored trains?
Surovikin, the newly appointed head of all Russian forces in Ukraine, today proposed that Russia should withdraw to the eastern bank of the Dnipro River, citing the increasing difficulty of keeping troops supplied.
Shoigu, Russia's Minister of Defense, agreed and ordered that the city of Kherson be abandoned and that a new line of defense set up on the eastern bank of the river.
Something like this has been expected given what Russia has been doing for the past couple of weeks (stealing everything not nailed down in Kherson), but it's still pretty danged humiliating to have to abandon the capital of what is supposed to be one of their new territories.
Now comes the fun part of Russia trying to conduct an orderly withdraw and save as many trained troops and heavy equipment as possible while most river crossings are under Ukrainian fire control.
I still don't see them leaving Kherson graciously. They have some kind of atrocious f*ckery planned. Nuke, chem, bio, or blowing up the NKHPP, they are up to something.
NKHPP?
Novo kakhovka hydroelectric power plant
OMG Paleo, have you seen Mearsheimer's website?
The f*cking ego on this guy.
OMG Paleo, have you seen Mearsheimer's website?
The f*cking ego on this guy.
Yeah. Mearsheimer makes me question the University of Chicago's USA Today rankings.
I really should do a better job of studying Ukrainian railroad maps.
I just had a look at the one in the Kherson region and just noticed why the Russians are in such a hurry to gtfo of Kherson. The railroads in that area are laid out like a giant inverted V with nova kakhovka to the west, the Antonovsky bridge to the east, and snihurivka at the apex. At the base of the triangle is the M14 highway that runs along the right bank of the river.
The Antonovsky bridge has been out since the Spring, which means that anything heavier than a pallet of MRE's has had to come across the Nova Kakhovka by rail. From there, it had to either make the trip up to Snihurivka and back down to Kherson or unload onto trucks and travel the M14 hwy. Doing so has been tough since the US has been giving the Ukrainians satellite verified target lists for HIMARS on the supply dumps. That and they have precious few trucks and drivers left and using fuel to keep those truck fleets going is a nasty way to increase your burn rate.
The Russians lost thousands of men holding Snihurivka for exactly this reason.
They lost it last night.
Worth watching to the end.
Unconfirmed reports of complete collapse, panic and constant shelling of the Russians trying to cross the Dnipro.
Unconfirmed reports of complete collapse, panic and constant shelling of the Russians trying to cross the Dnipro.
Yeah. It looks like the conscripts don't want to be the last ones left without a chair.
This is the Russian version of the Fall of Saigon.
Instead of a Huey airlifting people off the roof of the American embassy, it's the last of their professional soldiers abandoning Kherson and crossing the Dnipro on a partially destroyed barge bridge.
Ukrainian officials are already saying Kherson has been liberated, which is confirmed by video of AFU troops and Ukrainian flags in the city.
Russian officials have claimed that the evacuation of Kherson is complete and Russian forces have blown up bridges over the river. There are, however, persistent rumors on Telegram that Russia left around 20,000 troops behind, mostly mobiks, as well as the majority of its heavy equipment and weapons and that they'll be quite a reaction when the scale of Russia's losses are fully known.
Considering they have had literally months to prepare for this withdrawal, if there is any operative equipment left there to capture, someone should fall out a window.
"Everything that is happening now has been achieved by months of fierce struggle. It was achieved through courage, pain, and loss. It's not the enemy leaving. It is the Ukrainians who drive the occupiers out at a heavy cost" President Volodymyr Zelensky
With the Putinites well and truly out of Kherson and the chances of an Odessa offensive in the bin, look for the next hard fighting to be toward the axis of two little known towns called Smyrnove and Olesiivka. If the Ukrainians manage to take and hold it, the last remaining rail link to Crimea is cut off and all hell breaks loose.
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