I don’t believe there was that much strategic consideration.
More like, Putin had been buying so much influence and peddling so disinformation in western political systems, bringing about Trump, Brexit, a hard lurch to the right in many EU Continental states, besides ingraining fossil fuel dependency in the main EU economies, since before 2014 and thence…
…couple that with a distorted perception of military capabilities and then he probably thought that he’d have to have go -now or never, like- as all this influence started to unravel after Covid (Biden in, GB on skids/into ever more irrelevance, EU not fragilised by Brexit/Covid, LePen didn’t get anywhere, far right losing ground in NL/AT/DE/etc.)
So Germany foots the bill for Ukraine...
Yeah it’s not looking good in Bakhmut.
Russia seems to be throwing everything at it.
Ukraine have done really well to repel it so far but seems it’s getting worn down slowly.
Then they should be careful what the ask for, they might just get it.
no russia does but germany and whoever else funded the pipelines need to take on some serious guilt
Patton for all his faults knew his history better than anyone and saw the russians for what they are a mindless hoard
He forced some of them into the Russian army so they won't think kindly of him for that.
Whatever you think about Trump he at least had the savvy to warn the Germans about dealing with the Russians.
True, but look at the power OPEC have over the US.
I'd be no fan of Winston Churchill, but he also had no time for the Russians. In private, he regarded them as a bunch of brutes and savages and it was he who coined the phrase "Iron Curtain".
I thought Churchill looked down on everyone who wasn't British?
Lots of reports that Chornobaivka and the airport near Kherson city has been taken.
Supposedly sounds of gunfire on the outskirts of Kherson city.
This doesn't look like a very orderly withdrawal to me. I think there is a possibility that Ukraine can reach the river before all the Russians cross.
Lots of abandoned equipment would be bad enough for Russia, but even a few hundred captured troops would be disastrous.
Fingers crossed. Next 24 hours are key.
Imagine being such a stupe.
It would be hilarious if they destroyed the bridge before all their comrades got across 🤞
Explosions at hydropower plant in Nova Kakhovka
are they flooding the valley?
11.11.2022
Kherson, Russia?
Reported: The Ukrainian Armed Forces entered the city.
/At the same time, it is reported that Russian units are still in the city.
Probably the less drastic thing first, sabotaging the turbines.
But Europe doesn't have gas to sell in double amount and price to compensate losses...
Missile strikes reported at Russian military at Kakhovska hydropower plant
i expect to see this dam busted before morning
It has happened before. At the Battle of Leipzig in 1813, the French were making an orderly withdrawal across the Elster when an engineer NCO lit the demolition fuse much too early and blew the bridge, killing many and trapping over 30,000 men and three Marshals (two of whom were ablke to swim to safety) on the wrong side, and turning the orderly retreat into a major defeat.
11.10.2022
Kherson Oblast, Russia.
Various sources report:
"On the right bank of the Dnieper River, 18,000 to 22,000 Russian Armed Forces troops remain crowded in the crossing area."
Russians trying to escape across the river on motor boats?
Lot of reports on Reddit of a huge number of Russian troops trapped. If true, this could be the breaking point of the Russian army.
Even Russian bloggers seem spooked.
im sure one or two will find there way onto this thread soon
Paton was right, as was Churchill in his unflatering description and characterisation of Islam. Paton calling the Russians asiatic and devious fits with the gentic legacy of the worst mass rapist in history, being of course, Ghengis Khan. 8% of all men in the regions he conquered carry a genetic marker denoting them as descendents of this awful, awful POS.
I was watching Euronews earlier and they had an interview with Yulia Paievska, A Ukrainian army medic who was captured in Mariupol and of course tortured. And what she said just gels so well with what Paton said and what many of us on this thread have been feeling and saying about the Orcs.
Russians have no pity'
"I saw Russians erasing a city of half a million people, step-by-step with their airstrikes. It was unthinkable and it really was a continuous shelling of infrastructure, residential quarters and houses," Paievska said.
"And I saw a huge quantity of wounded people -- civilians -- and amongst them children. Many of them had (injured limbs that had) to be amputated. So it was very difficult, extremely heavy. And I saw people dying, so it was very hard."
"It was really inhumane because of the captivity with torture applied and special cells equipped with the equipment for executions to torture people," Paievska recalled.
"So it is very important, and I would like to warn you about the problem the world can face if we don't stop it [the war] together."
"The Russians have no pity. They are merciless. And they want to impose Russia's will on the whole of Europe. That’s what they were telling me while I was in the captivity," she emphasised.
https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2022/11/10/russians-are-inhumane-and-use-torture-famous-mariupol-survivor-says
Boom - Paton revisited.
She said a Russian asked her as he tortured her: "Do you know why we do this to you?"
She replied: "Because you can."
Volunteer medic Yuliia Paievska, known to Ukrainians by the nickname Taira, speaks to the Helsinki Commission.(AP: Mariam Zuhaib)
A seven-year-old boy died in her lap because she had none of the medical gear she needed to treat him, she said.
Torture usually began with their captors forcing the Ukrainian prisoners to remove their clothes, before the Russian forces set to bloodying and tormenting the detainees, she said.
She said some "prisoners [were] in cells screaming for weeks, and then dying from the torture without any medical help".
"Then in this torment of hell, the only things they feel before death is abuse and additional beating,"
Russians are the modern day Nazis.
Nope. These are Ukrainian strikes. The Russians will not blow the dam and send 20k troops crossing to a watery grave.
in Kherson, panic broke out among the Russian military. They abandon their equipment and try to get to the left bank. It is not possible to cross safely. A military disaster is brewing. The Dnieper will not become a freeze line. dimitriev
This all sounds very promising.
We could be close to seeing the daily Russian body count breach 1k
they are in red on the map, usually means Russian
That is one of the few crossing points over the river. It seems highly, highly unlikely that the Russians are going to be targeting the crossing they are attempting to escape over.
![Photo of [Deleted User]](https://we.vanillicon.com/v2/e050b53be62f0ae2404c620976170938.svg)
