Russia - threadbanned users in OP

Anything that they can recover, and repair / cannibalize they will. These ate expensive machines, and spare parts may not be readily available for them, especially if these parts are manufactured in the west now that sanctions are in place.

Putin ( hereafter called "The Emperor" ) was repeatedly told by his loyal advisors that indeed he was right in his thinking that it was really him they wanted to rule over them in the breakaway province, which has been hijacked in an illegal election. In fact they were waiting with flowers and vodka to welcome his army, and all was going according to plan with the new Government waiting to step in, as soon as the foreign imposed Govt fled. And of course your Majesty, should there be any foreign inspired resistance, no worries, you have one of the most up to date and best equipped military's in the whole world. There devotion to you is 100%.They are of course willing to die for you and the Motherland.

I cant believe that a *discreet* bounty of 100 million or so hasn't been offered to a few professional mercenaries for the head of Putin.

I cant believe that Nato and the US will not intervene when the most horrific war crimes are being committed on a daily basis.

I cant believe that an entire country with 40 million people can be allowed to be systematically destroyed.

I cant believe that the free world will not stand up and confront the threat of nuclear retaliation for any interference.

I cant believe there are those concerned only for their own skin because of the nuclear threat, so the raping and murder of little girls continues.

I cant believe that a solitary man can be allowed to do exactly as he pleases, for as long as he pleases, and to whom he pleases.

I cant believe that the human race stands by and watches all of this.

I believe if a God exists then mankind will pay the ultimate price for its disgrace.

He doesn't do it to whom he pleases, he preys on the vulnerable, you won't see him invaded his hated America any time soon, instead he murders his "cousins", he is really just a coward.

Also I believe all these things because they have been happening somewhere in the world since the dawn of civilisation but that doesn't make it right.

It's not ships that are the problem; I don't believe Ukraine have once asked for anti-ship missiles. Russia haven't even attempted an amphibious landing and we're in the 2nd month already; you have to imagine every landing position is heavily mined and fortified at this stage.

They need air defences and aircraft; neither of which the West seems to be willing to provide. They have asked for tanks although I have no idea why; tank crews require lots of training to be effective and tanks aren't exactly the best idea without proper air support.

Also I haven't seen any reputable source on the ship being damaged. Remember they also claimed to have sank a different ship earlier in the war which has since been proven false.

Well they did...

"KIEV (RIA Novosti): The Ukrainian authorities have asked the United States to provide anti-ship missiles “Harpoon”, Ukrainian edition of ZN.UA reported on Monday."

"To bolster its defenses against invading Russian forces, Ukraine is asking the Biden administration for armed drones, anti-ship missiles, “off-the-shelf” electronic jamming equipment and surface-to-air missiles that can strike aircraft at a higher altitude, according to four sources with knowledge of the request.'"

"According to another source, Ukraine has been asking for lethal aid on the Black Sea, and the UK has "a list of what they require and we try and meet it where we can. The PM is committed to helping Ukraine defend itself and he will support that need.”

Unlike other allies who have been prudent in sending additional aid until a provocation comes from Russia, Johnson disagrees. According to a senior government source, "Boris says we don't need another trigger... He [Putin] has already crossed the line ... Whatever Zelensky asks for he will get if we have it.”

Props to Boris Johnson! The contrast with Germany couldn't be greater.

Predictably the Russians are denying the reports of mass killings and genocide in Bucha and elsewhere.

In a number of online statements the Russian authorities claim "no residents suffered from any violent action" And allegedly "Russian servicemen distributed 452 t of humanitarian aid to civilians"

And if those lies weren't enough this additional bit is the real clincher

After all, we’re not members of the ICC,” the state-run TASS news agency quoted Peskov, the Kremlin Press Secretary as saying.

In other news Anonymous are stating that they have just published the name, rank, and other details of 120,000 Russian servicemen obtained from a recent hack of Russian communications.

CNN isn't a Russian state media outlet.

"Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called for more weapons and for Europe to close its sea ports to Russia in an address to the Norwegian parliament on Wednesday.  

Zelensky asked for anti-ship missiles, Harpoon rockets, anti-air missile systems and anti-tank guns." https://edition.cnn.com/europe/live-news/ukraine-russia-putin-news-03-30-22/h_f6d3e78e06b3946f22b8d26ccc3f562e

Excellent article in the WSJ drawing on the similarities of the war in Chechnya and the current situation in Ukraine:-

Likely stuck behind a pay wall for many so I've quoted a few paragraphs which stand out to me:-

"The brutality of Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine carries terrible echoes of Russia’s war in Chechnya. Boris Yeltsin launched that conflict in 1994 and paused it in 1996; Mr. Putin prosecuted its second phase from 1999 through 2009. By 1996, as many as 50,000 people had already lost their lives in a republic of little more than one million. A large and once prosperous city lay in ruins. Chechnya was devastated, wounded, radicalized—and has never recovered from the trauma. In today’s Mariupol and Kharkiv, mainly Russian-speaking Ukrainian cities destroyed by Russian power, we see the ghosts of that conflict and seem condemned to relearn its lessons."

"The circumstances are far from identical. Chechnya is small and was always recognized as being part of Russia, even when the rebellious Chechen leader, Dzhokhar Dudayev, declared its independence from Moscow in 1991. Ukraine, on the other hand, has been a functioning, peaceful sovereign state for 30 years. It could be faulted for corruption and poor governance, but it posed no threat except to Mr. Putin’s fantasies of history."

"Nonetheless, Russia entered both wars with similar assumptions. Mr. Putin’s inner circle, we are told, believed that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his government would be toppled in three days. In 1994, Yeltsin’s defense minister Pavel Grachev boasted that Chechnya could be captured “in two hours with one parachute regiment.” In both places, Plan A failed, and the Russian government’s Plan B was total and indiscriminate warfare"

"Russia never paid a price for its total war in Chechnya. Western leaders gave priority to a good relationship with Moscow over their commitment to human rights. In Moscow in 1996, Bill Clinton bizarrely compared Yeltsin’s war for Chechnya to the U.S. Civil War, citing “the proposition that Abraham Lincoln gave his life for, that no state had a right to withdraw from our Union.” In 2000, Tony Blair’s spokesman described Mr. Putin’s war as one to put down “a terrorist insurrection.”

"If a smaller country, one without a UN Security Council veto, had prosecuted such a brutal war, its leaders would surely have been forced to stand trial in The Hague, as Bosnia’s war criminals did. But Moscow got a pass, and its way of war—evidenced not only in Chechnya and Ukraine but in the civilian neighborhoods of Aleppo that the Russian air force razed in 2016—has remained remarkably consistent"

"The tactics likely originate in a kind of false memory of the Red Army’s victory over Adolf Hitler in 1945, through total warfare, the pulverization of Berlin and the loss of millions of lives. For a generation of ordinary Russians, the unspeakable losses of that war were an argument for peace at all costs. But the Russian elite—Mr. Putin most recently—instead drew the lesson that the end justified the apocalyptic means."

And finally:-

"Chechnya’s lessons for Ukraine are grim. They tell us that the Russian leadership is likely prepared to pay a huge human toll to attain impossible objectives. A full Russian occupation of a country of 40 million people is simply unachievable, and Ukrainian resistance will surely prevail in the end. But as one Ukrainian officer reportedly told a Russian journalist, Ukraine’s tragedy is that “they measure time in days and weeks, and we do so in human lives.”

And a Tweet from the author who wrote the piece just before the news coming from Bucha:-

Sadly, there will be many more minutes of silence required going forward for the inevitable further deaths.

RIP

Sadly, I feel this Tweet will turn out to be correct (though I would hope it is way off the mark) that Mariupol and Izyum could be on par or worse than what we have seen in Bucha:-

Theie average AvtoVAZ may cost more than our average Audi, Mercedes or BMW soon enough?