Surely, the people of Mariupol must have had an inkling of what Russian forces would do to them before the city was surrounded. There was time to leave between the invasion and the encirclement. "Get out while you can!" is not difficult to comprehend.
They were even leaving by tractor and trailers across fields, cross country till the Russians copped that, from Mariupol and the Russians started targeting those too.
That post is complete victim blaming. Russians are human too. And can restrain themselves like any human can.
Not sure if I can find the video link, but saw a clip three weeks ago from Sievierodonetsk of Ukrainian troops walking around trying to evaluate the best place to set up their defensive lines when they pass the door of an apartment block and realize there's several families still living there, the mother is standing at the doorway while her children run in and out.
Ukrainian Soldier: You do know there's a war on? The Russian army is less that 20km away and advancing towards our position?
Nonchalent Resident: Nah, won't be leaving, we believe it's safer to say put. A family we knew left two weeks ago and haven't been heard of since. We won't be making that mistake!
I'm sure there was probably the same obstinacy amongst some residents in Mariupol, unfortunately the Ukrainian Army can only advise residents to evacuate - they won't force them to leave (that's the Russian playbook)
The people in Mariupol didn't realise until too late what the Russians planned for the city. By the time they started to flatten it with shelling, large numbers were already trapped.
political analyst reading the replies
And it was a majority Russian-speaking area with a close enough balance between Russians and Ukrainians so there will have been minorities welcoming the Russians, others expecting not much to change, others expecting preferable treatment etc.
Six hours since the last post. The topic of the Ukrainian invasion is becoming less and less important. People are increasingly worried about the deteriorating economic situation and most people imo would like to see a ceasefire between Russia and the west/Ukraine.
The tripe you come out with. It is no less import then yesterday, or 3 months ago. You may not be in Ireland, but most here are, and the 6 hours you mention were from midnight to 6am. People tend to sleep at night, unless they are not permitted by constant shelling like your dear leader has ordered in Ukraine. There is not a huge amount of news to talk about as there appears to be a longish stalemate at the moment.
Six hours since the last post? You mean between midnight at the time people get up. It's an Irish website.
Strange how you never tried to validate your 'theory' and show us the equivalent post count overnight on threads discussing economic situation?
There was 1 post on the Inflation thread since I last checked, 0 on the Recession thread and 10 on the Russia thread.
So I guess what that means the topic of Ukraine is 10 times more important eh?
This was the metric you set so let's here you apply your own logic and accept that Ukraine is 10 times more important???
Because at the moment your posts have no credibility and you just seem to be here to drop in Russian propaganda cues.
Loving the pro-Russian "bots" - not actually bots, more like the human element of the Borg. Great to see they are worried.
UK MoD, just because things seem quiet doesn't mean nothing is happening.
What I take from this is that a world naval power (relatively speaking) can be held back by a relatively small amount of munitions. Thinking of China's new Aircraft carrier fleet.
I'm guessing a tug wouldn't have much in the way of anti-missile defences versus a proper naval warship \ fleet protected by same. It does show the difficulty of trying to resupply Snake Island, either be willing to lose some of the supply ships or send a fleet which can actively defend itself to run the gauntlet.
No, but the Moskova had or should have had. Apparently distracted by a drone, but that seems bizarre - unless every comms officer left their station to crowd around one detection device.
Hey now, hey now! The Borg were at least trying to spread their form of "perfection" across the galaxy. They were evil...but meant well :P
As for the Russian Bots...damned if I know what they want, if they somehow are not actually working for Russia. "Owning the Libs"? Perhaps, or some such nonsense.
I believe it was something to do with having directional radar which was pointed at the drone and thus couldn't see the missile coming.
So, attack it from two sides at once and the Moskova was a fish tank model? Bizzare it was relying on such a flawed defence system.
There's something oddly hilarious with the idea that Ukraine may have actually used the old "Hey! Look over there!" trick to successfully destroy the Russian Flagship.
But that's the serious miscalculation and delusion of putin he hasn't realised that this is the 21st century not the 19th, while many colonial powers could do that then they can't now.
He started a 19th century war of conquest as if this was the 18th or 19th centuries and is using wars that russia fought way back then like against Sweden under peter the great as a quasi justification as if this was a continuation of that.
Russia does not have the technical capacity to sustain this 21st century war ,it does not produce the high tech components needed to manufacture the modern weapons systems.
It has loads of resources anyway but not enough people and is losing its best and brightest. It is just simply not powerful enough to sustain this because it is not just at war with ukraine but with the whole western world that is also heavily nuclear armed so nuclear blackmail won't sustain putin for long anyway
The Russians are keeping there high value naval assets well out in the Black sea. The problem with trying to actively defend itself is these are missile attacks. You would need very well top of the range anti missile defences.
The Ukrainians can attack either with missiles and drones. If the Moldova could not defend itself supposedly the most advanced Russian battle cruiser, what chance would destroyer's or other Naval ships have.
I sure the Ukrainians would love to sink a Russian aircraft carrier.
Even using submarines to resupply would leave these vulnerable while docked to unload supplies
Although it would be exciting to have a bona fide Russian 'bot' in our midst, the truth is unfortunately more mundane. Most of them don't actually want anything or believe in anything, they're simple old fashioned contrarians. They don't want to be seen as part of any herd and will always pick the opposing viewpoint, simply because it is the opposing viewpoint. They see themselves as being more intelligent because they're not going along with 'the herd'. Society has always had them, years ago they would be known as the contrary ould bast**d stuck in the corner of the pub.
Hey now, hey now
Don't dream it's over
When the world comes in
They come, they come
To build a wall between us
We know they won't win
So you decided to post that garbage at 6am on a Tuesday morning? Are you deliberately pretending to be a Kremlin BOT based in Eastern Siberia?
Well I wonder how repeatable the drone trick is against other warships. Was its success largely due to the element of surprise.
But I think also a factor in Russia being cautious is they can't just send in more ships to the Black sea, Turkey closed the straits to new warships entering the Black sea when they declared it a war zone. So any large naval assets sunk are gone.
It's almost like most of the people in Ireland are asleep between midnight and 6am
I get the impression that Russia has forgotten how to fight real wars. The last war they fought was WW2. Since then they've just blown everything apart and declared victory. Now they have a real war in Ukraine and don't seem to know how to fight it except blowing everything to bits.
A genuine contrarian would be one thing, but here we have 'herd' contrarians who echo the same (Russian propagated) talking points as if they are being original.
The ukranians would struggle to sink a russian aircraft carrier. They only have one and that is in drydock in Murmansk for repairs and wont be moving anywhere for at least a year.
Before February we would have believed Russia could have walked the walk. As a result of all of this there are renewed questions over China's fighting ability. The so-called warmongering of the US/West over the last two decades or so does put them in a better position in any other conflict, one you'd hope China is not inclined to start.
Russia have no interest in a ceasefire.
What benefit is there to Russia in negotiation or ceasefire as things now stand?
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