Hello everybody! This afternoon I’ll start with unimportant news. At least according to latest appearances of top of Putin’s propaganda-industrialists. Correspondingly, and for everybody’s information: the Prigozhin/Wagner ‘mutiny’ was instigated by the aggressive NATO expansion, and CIA too, and they didn’t say a word to Russia so the Russians can go killing each other. Shame on the West. And that the West was involved was confirmed by nobody less than Pudding, when he announced that Wagner was always fully financed by the state. Which means: by Putin. Therefore, the entire affair is unimportant. A disagreement between two boyars. Happened time and again in the history of the Russian telenovela. Which is why, on 27 June, Pudding rushed to decorate Shoygu for suppression of the entire affair, too…
Jun 29, 2023·edited Jun 29, 2023Liked by Sarcastosaurus
1. "the Russians hit the place with two S-300s..." - nope, those were Iskanders. Nobody would expect to hit such a target with s-300.
2. "...why did they arrest him only after the attack, why not before it?" - no wonder. The informant was seen to shoot photos of parking cars (perhaps, they used surveilance cameras) and had been identified. After the attack it can be done relatively easily. But to observe the whole town all the time to prevent the attack - well, you would definitely need thousands of observers to do it. There are places where filming is strictly prohibited (if one tried he would be immediately detained). The restaurant was obviously not among them.
I love when you report about what's going on in the front. Not so much your editorializing.
You seem to be saying that Russia can't be prosecuted for war crimes because the US passed a law that it's people can't be prosecuted.
Let's talk about international law.
It doesn't exist.
Might makes right. There is NO enforcement mechanism for any international law. The only way to enforce "international law" is by having enough nations agree to do it.
No UN/EU/ICCJ or any other body can do anything to enforce any judgement.
"Laws" without enforcement are not laws. So, there is no international law.
But... like I said... you can get enough countries together to try and force an outcome.
So let's cut to the chase. Stop the charade of international courts and just enforce secondary sanctions on anyone who does ANY business with Russia.
That means India, China, Hungary, Israel, Turkey... the list goes on.
Enforce economy crippling sanctions on ALL of them until they either:
1. Stop trading with Russia.
2. Impose a tariff/tax on all goods traded in/out of Russia. With Ukraine as beneficiary.
(This is what will happen after the war anyway to make Russia pay for reconstruction.)
You only need the 5 of the G7 to agree to this. As long as one of those five is the US.
This is enough market share for any country to have to weigh... destroying their own economy... or destroying Russia's.
If we had done anything similar to this 12-14 months ago... the war would be over.
But Europe sold it's soul to Putin via energy. So here we are.
Trading Ukrainian lives for Russian energy. It has NOTHING to do with international law or criminal courts. Definitely nothing to do with Bush or the US.
Secondary sanctions. That's the key.
PS.. if I hear another politician say there is no legal mechanism to seize Russian assets I'm going puke. Why do we care about what's "legal" regarding Russia? Was it legal for Russia to murder two 14 year old girls at a pizza restaurant this week? Legal to rape and murder in Bucha and Irpin? Legal to invade Ukraine in 2014, Georgia 2008, Moldova 1992, and on and on and on. Fuck Russia, Fuck Putin. Beat him at his own game. Don't talk about international law stopping a man who doesn't care about "International Law".
Well, word is, it wasn't me: I wasn't even born at the time....but, sometimes.... back in.... was it 1945....? Representatives of few countries sat together to create the United Nations. And, at different other opportunities before and after, some other representatives of the same and few other countries sat together to write the Geneva Conventions, and the international rules of war, too...
....might be of some relevance in all of this.... who can say....
I do say, though, that it's 'no surprise' it's somebody with 'special interest in economy' whom I've got to remind about this....
I hate the UN. But if we ended it today, we would need to rebuild it tomorrow. The concept is sound. A place for all nations to talk. It's what it has grown into that is troublesome.
And as someone in Ukraine right now doing aid work... I can say that the UN has a HORRIBLE reputation here.
UN deserves a horrible reputation. In fact in is the institution that gives sinecures to aged politicians of the countries of minor importance. Namely the grandpa Gutierresh is laughable.
The 'UN (does) deserve' a horrible reputation - but mind: that UN is made of representatives of your and my countries: of the same politicians that are screwing up every single day.
There is one exception however with Hague Invasion Act - the US officials or personnel did not and do not commit such war crimes without any prosecution like ruzziests criminals. Thus, it cannot be considered as a precedent of ‘turning off’ all the international regulations for commiting war crimes, crimes against humanity and illegalising the International Criminal Court in the Hague.
What terrible war crimes? Do they compare in any way to mass murderers of ruzziests and their crimes, to ruzziests' hulahs with millions of innocent people imprisoned and hundred of thousands killed there?
You mention crimes dictators' police perpetrated against their own or occupied population.
I wrote about the tortures, killings and unnatural rapes soldiers did to captives and civilians.
If you want to consider the occupation, Iraq war caused 100 000 direct civilian deaths and up to 1 000 000 indirect casualties, according to Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_War and it shows 2 000 000 for Vietnam war civilian deaths (not only by the US forces).
What tortures, killings and unnatural rapes soldiers did to captives and civilians? Don't post your fairy ruzziest tales. According to your link, "The majority of deaths occurred as a result of the insurgency and civil conflicts between 2004 and 2007"
Do they compare to over 10 millions innocent Ukrainians killed in genocide in 1921, 1932-33? Or you will start to persuade me they were not innocent, but nationalists, because they have spoken Ukrainian language, wear Ukrainian clothes, and confess Ukrainian culture?
"the US officials or personnel did not and do not commit such war crimes without any prosecution like ruzziests criminals. Thus, it cannot be considered as a precedent of ‘turning off’ all the international regulations for commiting war crimes"
"Treating genocide as a rare, usually historical occurrence is nonsense. It’s happening today in Darfur. It’s happening in Myanmar, where minority Rohingyas are persecuted and displaced by a vicious military junta. And it’s happening in China with the documented mass detention, forced labour, involuntary sterilisation, family separation and religious persecution of Uyghurs in Xinjiang."
Jul 1, 2023·edited Jul 1, 2023Liked by Sarcastosaurus
Ukraine still pumps Russian gas and oil right now through Ukrainian pipeline system and you receive profit every day. It is so easy to shut-off the valves and stop compressor stations but system is still in use for the profit of both sides… And there is no any signs of war in these districts along the pipeline routes. Very funny war
You might want to add the destruction of the Kakhovka dam as well to that list. Complicated as the atrocities and the fuck ups are, I think there's one thing that politicians and non political figutes can somewhat share that factor into how apathetic everyone is; they don't care about that when they have 'bigger' things to worry about. It may sound blunt and harsh, but that's what I've witnessed every time I tell a friend of colleague about the Kakhovka dam and wonder why we don't do much more or condone the Russian's further, they just seem disinterested or concerned with their own smaller worries that they believe takes bigger precedence than some far flung country in their eyes.
"It's not my nation being invaded and destroyed by another country, so why should I care?". This logic may not apply to all but it definitely applies to plenty of people and places, and I doubt it's gonna change until their the ones who have guns pointed at their faces or it actually affects them enough to care about it
Any civilian piece or form of infrastructure that houses military personnel or equipment is a valid target. The action that comes after is decided only by the proportionality of your response. Example1: you discover a machine gun nest located at the 3rd or 4th floor of an apartment building, you are allowed to put a couple of tank shells or RPGs through that building but you are not allowed to bring down the building. Example2: you discover an enemy command post located in the basement of a house or apartment building, you are not allowed to bring down the building unless you can proove you have exhausted all other less destructive means and the existence of that command post is causing you a lot of casualties and hindering your operations. Even a civilian hospital, which is not marked as such or has a machine gun emplacement on the roof or any form of defensive engineering works around it or is used to store military equipment, is a valid target.
In a category of their own are buildings and structures that represent a form of art, cultural heritage etc. which require different circumstances and higher command chains to give the OK. Usually, political OK is also required in this case, besides the military one. Another category is represented by dams, power plants etc, but even these ones can bacome valid targets, given some circumstances.
You’re absolutely right. But you examples lack precision. Let’s presume that your command post is located in the basement of another apartment building, just in front of that one with the enemy. Both are valid targets, no doubt. Your possible actions, though, depend not only on rules of war (i.e. minimize civilian casualties of the enemy) but also on caring for your own civilians. In the case of Kramatorsk massacre that means:
a) the enemy has nothing to repel your ballistic missiles with, so your strike will 99% succeed, and
b) the enemy shall not hit back.
Should Ukraine possess not 2, but, let’s say, 52 MIM-104 and should it have its own long-range missiles (to reach Rostov, for instance) – you would undoubtedly be more cautious when choosing «valid targets», wouldn’t you?
I was strictly refering to the rules of war, nothing else. Of course other considerations will should be taken into account when selecting and approving targets but these require a more intimate knowledge of each situation and I don't have it. But I will say this, I do not think war works on reciprocities or gentleman agreements.
I guess it doesn't matter. If Budanov seems to be in a pizzeria (even if he is not) that makes it a valid target. Given the circumstances, it's that simple. The dam was a valid target, too, but it took a while for the chain of command to approve of the blow-up. Rules of war, not ecocide. It's childish not to understand that.
Civilians are potential soldiers. So according to the "rules of war" they must be exterminated. I would not be surprised to learn that Razvan is of Asiatic origin where human life has no value at all. By the contents of the comments we can easily deduce the origin of the author.
About my nationality and residence you are wrong, I am Romanian and live and work in Romania, the only country with a Latin language in Eastern Europe. For the rest of your comments, you alone arrived at that conclusion, I never suggested it.
If you think Razvan is advocating killing civilians, you argue with him. Why are you racist, razist against billions of people of Asiatic origin, saying that "where human life has no value at all"?
I get it, you don't like these rules and want to change them. You can start here, ask for someone from ACO OLA and take your argumenents with them. You never know, such fine arguments might just persuade them.
You are not the only one to advocate Russian mode of war but you are the first referring to "the rules of war". I prefer to let the prosecution formulate its own judgement about the applicability of the "rules of war" to Russian habit of killing civilians in crowded places.
I’ve been to that restaurant a few times. Keep in mind it is basically the only restaurant in the city that I know of. That means it is busy with all kinds of people: journalists, humanitarians (me and my colleagues), soldiers, regular civilians, etc.
There were soldiers there each time I went but it was equally full of all other types. It’s a damn shame but not a surprise that it was bombed. After reflecting on it, we should have stayed away, but you tend to get more comfortable than you should in these situations until things go wrong.
Thanks Tom for the update, things are looking good to me and I agree 100% about F16's vs EW unit artillery and shells, my thought are that Ukraine would be better served with A10's and Apache Longbow's routing out trenches and tanking out tanks and artillery is what they do
A-10s couldn't do anything Su-25s can't - and would be shot down in similar numbers.
If a 'Western air force', then Ukraine needs one with such long-range stuff like (yet more of) Storm Shadows, SCALPs etc.
Neither NATO nor USA can deliver such F-16s, simply because these do not have such stuff in service. Only Israel does (see: Rampage), and Israel is not going to deliver anything to Ukraine: Bibi is much too close friend to most of Putin's oligarchy for that.
I agree the A10 & U-25 are the same and the chance of getting shot down are equal but having to many of this type of aircraft is not possible is my thinking . The US is just going to chop the wings off a bunch of A10's there just waiting to be chopped up
1) Regardless of what we call it, an offensive or not, do you think this is it from the ZSU side? Is this nothing more but a slightly less bloody version of the VSRF winter offensive or something is going to happen?
2) Where is the, supposedly, rebuilt 1st GTA of the VSRF? Is it involved in any actions?
3) You sometimes state that some unit suffered massive losses, got mauled etc. However, even official ZSU daily reports show that for most days in the past month, the VSRF casualties where ~500, same as any "quiet" day since 24th Feb. What do you mean by massive?
4) Is PSU shooting any missiles & drones with their fighter planes? How common is it?
1.) Not making any kind of predictions, and got no insight into the ZSU's planning. Thus, sorry: can't say.
2.) Is currently involved in this 'biiiiiiiiiiig' offensive in the Kupyansk-Svatove-Kremina sector, and not coming forward for an inch.
3.) When, for example, a company of 150-200 suffers a loss of 40-60 KIA, that's 'massive' in my vocabulary. Is happening to some 2-7 Russian companies every day, for 3 weeks, meanwhile.
4.) Yes. Su-24s are deploying Storm Shadows and SCALPs. MiG-29s and Su-25s are still deploying AGM-88 HARMs... I only wonder why in 15 months of war not one of Experten in the West came to the idea to equip Su-25s with JDAM-like stuff: even Azeris are meanwhile operating Su-25s equipped with Turkish-made JDAM-variants...
Re. 'how common'. 2-4 Storm Shadow/SCALPs a day. Apparently a similar number of HARMs.
Thanks a lot for this. Re 4) I meant if the PSU are shooting down VKS missiles and drones (Shaheds) as a defensive action. However, by not being clear, you answered another very interesting question.
Essentially, the PSU seems to have stopped trying to intercept Russian cruise missiles and LPGMs with MiG-29s and Su-27s. Was too dangerous, because the Russians would often exploit the situation to hunt Ukrainian interceptors with their R-37M-armed Su-35s and MiG-31s. Caused painful losses to the PSU.
BTW, except for Storm Shadows, SCALPs, and AGM-88s, the PSU is also deploying MALDs. These are custom-tailored missile decoys, made to mimick aircraft or such missiles like Storm Shadows and SCALPs. Apparently, the Russians are 'shooting them in droves'....
Let's add at least another 650 seriously wounded (usually more). It means ~1300 people as sanitary losses.
Let's consider that unit that lost 50% of personnel considered as "completely lost combat ability".
That means approximately at least one brigade is loosing combat ability every day based on personnel loses. Losses are mostly in the infantry component - so the overall combat effectiveness losses are even higher.
We can add significant losses in artillery which is approximately 18 pieces every day.
To put it in perspective - it is one third of brigade artillery physically destroyed.
And it is being aggregated by losses in officers and NCO.
We are going to see how long ruzzian army would be able to sustain it while on defensive.
They used an Iskander - a ballistic system capable of delivering tactical nuclear weapons - to blow up a pizza parlour in the (hope of) killing 12 foreign volunteers.
I know this is par for the course in terms of Russian targeting and has been for a long time, but it still needs repeating how nuts all this is. Do they have any sort of recon-targeting complex whatsoever? Just seems to be a conveyor belt from factory to "employment" (fire and forget)
"are foreign volunteers in Ukraine something like ‘holier than holy’ because they’re volunteering to help defend the country, or helping Ukrainian civilians…?"
I think the difference is just Ukrainians do know Ukrainian and so read/listen reminders about it every day until they remember it, while foreign volunteers read/listen non-local news mostly, and so didn't get enough of reminders.
The same as the majority of Ukrainians, even in near-the-front-line cities. So, the point is the same: foreigners just do not read or listed local news, where Ukrainian officials remind people about these martial law features.
well i guess civilian ukrainians indeed are less likely to wear uniforms compared to civilian foreign volunteers
the thing is, a foreign civilian can get a flashy non-standard issue uniform (which is not against laws btw, it's just that ukrainian civilian is less likely to get their hands on it), but a russian agent doesn't care if it's ukrainian pixel or nato multicam
in fact he'd be inclined to report on spotted nato uniform (even if it's just a civilian)
1. My comment wasn't about foreigners wearing uniforms, it was about them "pull out their smartphones and start taking videos" (that's from Tom's post).
2. Pixels are actualy not that much ubiquitous thing on Ukrainian military personnel: it wasn't the only official uniform before the full-invasion-build-up, and with the full invasion build-up and uniform losses and wearing-down it became more rare - Ukrainian manufactures cannot catch-up the dozens-of-times jumped needs, and foreigh aid included uniforms in numbers. So, there are multicams and many other uniform types on Ukrainian military personnel. It's quite a zoo - that's why blue, yellow and green strips.
common , druje, there aren't hundrends of thousands of foreign volunteers. All those volunteers are going through some bootcamp. It's the lack of procedures and general fuck off attitude of both volunteers and our trainers/officers that leads to this type of events.
Don't get me started on Desna, Mykolaiv, Yavoriv and other mass casualty events that could have been avoided. Actually there's a witness account of one of the foreign volunteers (from the UK) where his good sense of self preservation lead him to sleeping far from Yavoriv barracks, thus saving his and others lives.
The are dozens of thousands of them, and they are operating in small groups, in and out of Ukraine, changing their composition, and there is no way to herd them by our usual military bureaucracy because bypassing this sluggish bureaucracy is the reason why we need volunteers.
As for this withness - did you listen him really? He said that there was a rat there, who commanded a return to the complex. Think of it again.
Oh, I understood the point of confusion. You're talking about military volunteers, yet these guys we are discussing weren't military - they were medics and charity deliveries. Military men have no such tendency, despite Ukrainian Foreign Legion being young and messy structure (and, honestly, Ukrainians as a nation never had a discernible inclination towards discipline; I think Ukrainian Armed Forces, whenever they'll go, will be always skewed to the low-lewel initiative and innovativeness, yet no Prussian-like hierarchical orderliness).
I really hope after this war, Syrians get some sort of international help. I think Ukrainians will be the best placed people to understand what they are going through. Otherwise, there's news Ukraine may be finally getting ATACMS and DPCIM artillery. These may be serious game changers
I can recall last year's shelling of a restaurant in Donetsk, during which the former head of the Russian space program, Rogozin, who was celebrating his birthday there, was wounded in the ass by a shell fragment and several civilians from among the restaurant staff were killed. I don't remember the coverage of this "terrorist attack" in the world's leading media, although the circumstances are very similar, civilians were killed.
...well, 'different people wearing civilian clothes gathering on the crossroad' is not making any kind of a 'dual purpose' target either. And yet:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOWMRJM945I
Security guards wear camo in Ukraine.
Might be worth noting.
What @Sarcastosaurus means is that USA did act similarly to ruzzian army on some occasions.
Probably less regular.
I guess you need to learn good manners.
Или просто сходить следом за расейским крейсером.
1. "the Russians hit the place with two S-300s..." - nope, those were Iskanders. Nobody would expect to hit such a target with s-300.
2. "...why did they arrest him only after the attack, why not before it?" - no wonder. The informant was seen to shoot photos of parking cars (perhaps, they used surveilance cameras) and had been identified. After the attack it can be done relatively easily. But to observe the whole town all the time to prevent the attack - well, you would definitely need thousands of observers to do it. There are places where filming is strictly prohibited (if one tried he would be immediately detained). The restaurant was obviously not among them.
Ah, now it's 'Iskanders'? This morning, the talk was still about 'S-300s'....
Sounds plausible, though: thx!
It seems to be officially confirmed as Iskanders by Ukraine.
Those ruzzians really hate pizza...
Ukrainian officials confirmed it was Iskander-M.
I love when you report about what's going on in the front. Not so much your editorializing.
You seem to be saying that Russia can't be prosecuted for war crimes because the US passed a law that it's people can't be prosecuted.
Let's talk about international law.
It doesn't exist.
Might makes right. There is NO enforcement mechanism for any international law. The only way to enforce "international law" is by having enough nations agree to do it.
No UN/EU/ICCJ or any other body can do anything to enforce any judgement.
"Laws" without enforcement are not laws. So, there is no international law.
But... like I said... you can get enough countries together to try and force an outcome.
So let's cut to the chase. Stop the charade of international courts and just enforce secondary sanctions on anyone who does ANY business with Russia.
That means India, China, Hungary, Israel, Turkey... the list goes on.
Enforce economy crippling sanctions on ALL of them until they either:
1. Stop trading with Russia.
2. Impose a tariff/tax on all goods traded in/out of Russia. With Ukraine as beneficiary.
(This is what will happen after the war anyway to make Russia pay for reconstruction.)
You only need the 5 of the G7 to agree to this. As long as one of those five is the US.
This is enough market share for any country to have to weigh... destroying their own economy... or destroying Russia's.
If we had done anything similar to this 12-14 months ago... the war would be over.
But Europe sold it's soul to Putin via energy. So here we are.
Trading Ukrainian lives for Russian energy. It has NOTHING to do with international law or criminal courts. Definitely nothing to do with Bush or the US.
Secondary sanctions. That's the key.
PS.. if I hear another politician say there is no legal mechanism to seize Russian assets I'm going puke. Why do we care about what's "legal" regarding Russia? Was it legal for Russia to murder two 14 year old girls at a pizza restaurant this week? Legal to rape and murder in Bucha and Irpin? Legal to invade Ukraine in 2014, Georgia 2008, Moldova 1992, and on and on and on. Fuck Russia, Fuck Putin. Beat him at his own game. Don't talk about international law stopping a man who doesn't care about "International Law".
Well, word is, it wasn't me: I wasn't even born at the time....but, sometimes.... back in.... was it 1945....? Representatives of few countries sat together to create the United Nations. And, at different other opportunities before and after, some other representatives of the same and few other countries sat together to write the Geneva Conventions, and the international rules of war, too...
....might be of some relevance in all of this.... who can say....
I do say, though, that it's 'no surprise' it's somebody with 'special interest in economy' whom I've got to remind about this....
I hate the UN. But if we ended it today, we would need to rebuild it tomorrow. The concept is sound. A place for all nations to talk. It's what it has grown into that is troublesome.
And as someone in Ukraine right now doing aid work... I can say that the UN has a HORRIBLE reputation here.
UN deserves a horrible reputation. In fact in is the institution that gives sinecures to aged politicians of the countries of minor importance. Namely the grandpa Gutierresh is laughable.
The 'UN (does) deserve' a horrible reputation - but mind: that UN is made of representatives of your and my countries: of the same politicians that are screwing up every single day.
....which is why the UN can't be any better...
The years of peace made it possible for mentally impotent persons to be successful politicians.
There is one exception however with Hague Invasion Act - the US officials or personnel did not and do not commit such war crimes without any prosecution like ruzziests criminals. Thus, it cannot be considered as a precedent of ‘turning off’ all the international regulations for commiting war crimes, crimes against humanity and illegalising the International Criminal Court in the Hague.
US army committed many terrible war crimes in Vietnam. And they held and mistreated combatants in Guantanamo concentration camp.
What terrible war crimes? Do they compare in any way to mass murderers of ruzziests and their crimes, to ruzziests' hulahs with millions of innocent people imprisoned and hundred of thousands killed there?
You mention crimes dictators' police perpetrated against their own or occupied population.
I wrote about the tortures, killings and unnatural rapes soldiers did to captives and civilians.
If you want to consider the occupation, Iraq war caused 100 000 direct civilian deaths and up to 1 000 000 indirect casualties, according to Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_War and it shows 2 000 000 for Vietnam war civilian deaths (not only by the US forces).
What tortures, killings and unnatural rapes soldiers did to captives and civilians? Don't post your fairy ruzziest tales. According to your link, "The majority of deaths occurred as a result of the insurgency and civil conflicts between 2004 and 2007"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_war_crimes
Do they compare to over 10 millions innocent Ukrainians killed in genocide in 1921, 1932-33? Or you will start to persuade me they were not innocent, but nationalists, because they have spoken Ukrainian language, wear Ukrainian clothes, and confess Ukrainian culture?
Your original comment was about "war crimes", you wrote that phrase twice. Purges are not war crimes once a war is over.
Very good comparison. What is more horrible, war crimes or mass murder, crimes against humanity?
Quoting your original comment:
"the US officials or personnel did not and do not commit such war crimes without any prosecution like ruzziests criminals. Thus, it cannot be considered as a precedent of ‘turning off’ all the international regulations for commiting war crimes"
"Treating genocide as a rare, usually historical occurrence is nonsense. It’s happening today in Darfur. It’s happening in Myanmar, where minority Rohingyas are persecuted and displaced by a vicious military junta. And it’s happening in China with the documented mass detention, forced labour, involuntary sterilisation, family separation and religious persecution of Uyghurs in Xinjiang."
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jul/02/china-myanmar-and-now-darfur-the-horror-of-genocide-is-here-again
You forgot about Israel. They did the same protecting their soldiers and “ illegalising the International Criminal Court in the Hague”.
Ah, 'they do not'.... how nice that you're so 1000% sure...
Ukraine still pumps Russian gas and oil right now through Ukrainian pipeline system and you receive profit every day. It is so easy to shut-off the valves and stop compressor stations but system is still in use for the profit of both sides… And there is no any signs of war in these districts along the pipeline routes. Very funny war
You might want to add the destruction of the Kakhovka dam as well to that list. Complicated as the atrocities and the fuck ups are, I think there's one thing that politicians and non political figutes can somewhat share that factor into how apathetic everyone is; they don't care about that when they have 'bigger' things to worry about. It may sound blunt and harsh, but that's what I've witnessed every time I tell a friend of colleague about the Kakhovka dam and wonder why we don't do much more or condone the Russian's further, they just seem disinterested or concerned with their own smaller worries that they believe takes bigger precedence than some far flung country in their eyes.
"It's not my nation being invaded and destroyed by another country, so why should I care?". This logic may not apply to all but it definitely applies to plenty of people and places, and I doubt it's gonna change until their the ones who have guns pointed at their faces or it actually affects them enough to care about it
Yup, yup, and yup.
Any civilian piece or form of infrastructure that houses military personnel or equipment is a valid target. The action that comes after is decided only by the proportionality of your response. Example1: you discover a machine gun nest located at the 3rd or 4th floor of an apartment building, you are allowed to put a couple of tank shells or RPGs through that building but you are not allowed to bring down the building. Example2: you discover an enemy command post located in the basement of a house or apartment building, you are not allowed to bring down the building unless you can proove you have exhausted all other less destructive means and the existence of that command post is causing you a lot of casualties and hindering your operations. Even a civilian hospital, which is not marked as such or has a machine gun emplacement on the roof or any form of defensive engineering works around it or is used to store military equipment, is a valid target.
In a category of their own are buildings and structures that represent a form of art, cultural heritage etc. which require different circumstances and higher command chains to give the OK. Usually, political OK is also required in this case, besides the military one. Another category is represented by dams, power plants etc, but even these ones can bacome valid targets, given some circumstances.
Sure, and I bet that a nuclear bomb is justified, too, given some circumstances. Medvedev said so.
I don't care what he or everyone else said. These are just the rules of war.
Then Russians are playing exactly by the rules, as these are always their justifications. Good to know.
I don't know about that. I just laid down the rules and provided some general examples and context.
Sure, you never heard the Russians. And you don't care. Could be extraterestrial even.You are just speaking in general.
This is juvenile and I will not partake.
You’re absolutely right. But you examples lack precision. Let’s presume that your command post is located in the basement of another apartment building, just in front of that one with the enemy. Both are valid targets, no doubt. Your possible actions, though, depend not only on rules of war (i.e. minimize civilian casualties of the enemy) but also on caring for your own civilians. In the case of Kramatorsk massacre that means:
a) the enemy has nothing to repel your ballistic missiles with, so your strike will 99% succeed, and
b) the enemy shall not hit back.
Should Ukraine possess not 2, but, let’s say, 52 MIM-104 and should it have its own long-range missiles (to reach Rostov, for instance) – you would undoubtedly be more cautious when choosing «valid targets», wouldn’t you?
I was strictly refering to the rules of war, nothing else. Of course other considerations will should be taken into account when selecting and approving targets but these require a more intimate knowledge of each situation and I don't have it. But I will say this, I do not think war works on reciprocities or gentleman agreements.
He's just listing from the rules of war. It's that simple.
feeding can hardly be considered 'housing', right?
all your examples are pretty much irrelevant
though using plain clothes while off-duty seems like a good idea
wonder why no one thought of it
Mess hall or R&R facility and housing fall under the same category.
yeah i guess field kitchen is a valid target (and high-value for russians)
what would be the typical ratio of military/civilian/children for a pizzeria to be considered one though?
Come back to me with this after you have shaved for the first time.
ok дед
I guess it doesn't matter. If Budanov seems to be in a pizzeria (even if he is not) that makes it a valid target. Given the circumstances, it's that simple. The dam was a valid target, too, but it took a while for the chain of command to approve of the blow-up. Rules of war, not ecocide. It's childish not to understand that.
Civilians are potential soldiers. So according to the "rules of war" they must be exterminated. I would not be surprised to learn that Razvan is of Asiatic origin where human life has no value at all. By the contents of the comments we can easily deduce the origin of the author.
About my nationality and residence you are wrong, I am Romanian and live and work in Romania, the only country with a Latin language in Eastern Europe. For the rest of your comments, you alone arrived at that conclusion, I never suggested it.
Wow, "Asiatic origin where human life has no value at all"! Disgusting racism
Advocating killing civilians according to the "rules of war" is even more disgusting. Nobody except the person in question did not dare to do it.
You didn´t get the point in the discussion; Razvan is not advocating anything. He´s just listing the rules of war. No need to jump to his throat
If you think Razvan is advocating killing civilians, you argue with him. Why are you racist, razist against billions of people of Asiatic origin, saying that "where human life has no value at all"?
So according to your logic children must be also killed because they are future soldiers. In ancient times it was the custom.
How did you managed to deduce this from what I wrote ? It's not my logic, these are the rules.
You are not the first advocate of the devil. your arguments about "the rules of war" are mere sofistic.
https://shape.nato.int/public_affairs_office and https://www.icrc.org/en/document/ihl-rules-of-war-FAQ-Geneva-Conventions
I get it, you don't like these rules and want to change them. You can start here, ask for someone from ACO OLA and take your argumenents with them. You never know, such fine arguments might just persuade them.
You are not the only one to advocate Russian mode of war but you are the first referring to "the rules of war". I prefer to let the prosecution formulate its own judgement about the applicability of the "rules of war" to Russian habit of killing civilians in crowded places.
These rules are internationally agreed upon. If violations are discovered and proved, than yes, people should be held accountable.
I’ve been to that restaurant a few times. Keep in mind it is basically the only restaurant in the city that I know of. That means it is busy with all kinds of people: journalists, humanitarians (me and my colleagues), soldiers, regular civilians, etc.
There were soldiers there each time I went but it was equally full of all other types. It’s a damn shame but not a surprise that it was bombed. After reflecting on it, we should have stayed away, but you tend to get more comfortable than you should in these situations until things go wrong.
I guess some of us are human in the end, and some are not...
It doesn't matter. What does matter (especially to the Russians) was that their intel told them 'lots of military people'.
Shoot.....
Ukrainian sources reported that the informator sought crowded places where many people would be killed, military or not it did not matter.
Maybe Russians do not have enough information. They attacked shopping malls in Vinnitsa and Kremenchuk killing many civilians.
Thanks Tom for the update, things are looking good to me and I agree 100% about F16's vs EW unit artillery and shells, my thought are that Ukraine would be better served with A10's and Apache Longbow's routing out trenches and tanking out tanks and artillery is what they do
A-10s couldn't do anything Su-25s can't - and would be shot down in similar numbers.
If a 'Western air force', then Ukraine needs one with such long-range stuff like (yet more of) Storm Shadows, SCALPs etc.
Neither NATO nor USA can deliver such F-16s, simply because these do not have such stuff in service. Only Israel does (see: Rampage), and Israel is not going to deliver anything to Ukraine: Bibi is much too close friend to most of Putin's oligarchy for that.
I agree the A10 & U-25 are the same and the chance of getting shot down are equal but having to many of this type of aircraft is not possible is my thinking . The US is just going to chop the wings off a bunch of A10's there just waiting to be chopped up
Thanks Tom for the update.
1) Regardless of what we call it, an offensive or not, do you think this is it from the ZSU side? Is this nothing more but a slightly less bloody version of the VSRF winter offensive or something is going to happen?
2) Where is the, supposedly, rebuilt 1st GTA of the VSRF? Is it involved in any actions?
3) You sometimes state that some unit suffered massive losses, got mauled etc. However, even official ZSU daily reports show that for most days in the past month, the VSRF casualties where ~500, same as any "quiet" day since 24th Feb. What do you mean by massive?
4) Is PSU shooting any missiles & drones with their fighter planes? How common is it?
1.) Not making any kind of predictions, and got no insight into the ZSU's planning. Thus, sorry: can't say.
2.) Is currently involved in this 'biiiiiiiiiiig' offensive in the Kupyansk-Svatove-Kremina sector, and not coming forward for an inch.
3.) When, for example, a company of 150-200 suffers a loss of 40-60 KIA, that's 'massive' in my vocabulary. Is happening to some 2-7 Russian companies every day, for 3 weeks, meanwhile.
4.) Yes. Su-24s are deploying Storm Shadows and SCALPs. MiG-29s and Su-25s are still deploying AGM-88 HARMs... I only wonder why in 15 months of war not one of Experten in the West came to the idea to equip Su-25s with JDAM-like stuff: even Azeris are meanwhile operating Su-25s equipped with Turkish-made JDAM-variants...
Re. 'how common'. 2-4 Storm Shadow/SCALPs a day. Apparently a similar number of HARMs.
Thanks a lot for this. Re 4) I meant if the PSU are shooting down VKS missiles and drones (Shaheds) as a defensive action. However, by not being clear, you answered another very interesting question.
Ah sorry: reading much too fast....
Essentially, the PSU seems to have stopped trying to intercept Russian cruise missiles and LPGMs with MiG-29s and Su-27s. Was too dangerous, because the Russians would often exploit the situation to hunt Ukrainian interceptors with their R-37M-armed Su-35s and MiG-31s. Caused painful losses to the PSU.
BTW, except for Storm Shadows, SCALPs, and AGM-88s, the PSU is also deploying MALDs. These are custom-tailored missile decoys, made to mimick aircraft or such missiles like Storm Shadows and SCALPs. Apparently, the Russians are 'shooting them in droves'....
A 'BTW' here, talking about 'massive' losses. Check this:
https://twitter.com/wartranslated/status/1674506072868941853
Average ruzzian losses in the last 30 days (as per UA reports) is 655 dead (here is the dataset: https://github.com/PetroIvaniuk/2022-Ukraine-Russia-War-Dataset/tree/main/data).
Let's add at least another 650 seriously wounded (usually more). It means ~1300 people as sanitary losses.
Let's consider that unit that lost 50% of personnel considered as "completely lost combat ability".
That means approximately at least one brigade is loosing combat ability every day based on personnel loses. Losses are mostly in the infantry component - so the overall combat effectiveness losses are even higher.
We can add significant losses in artillery which is approximately 18 pieces every day.
To put it in perspective - it is one third of brigade artillery physically destroyed.
And it is being aggregated by losses in officers and NCO.
We are going to see how long ruzzian army would be able to sustain it while on defensive.
They used an Iskander - a ballistic system capable of delivering tactical nuclear weapons - to blow up a pizza parlour in the (hope of) killing 12 foreign volunteers.
I know this is par for the course in terms of Russian targeting and has been for a long time, but it still needs repeating how nuts all this is. Do they have any sort of recon-targeting complex whatsoever? Just seems to be a conveyor belt from factory to "employment" (fire and forget)
That's how the Russians are fighting wars.
And re. their 'recon-targeting complex': I've explained its essence above. That's how it 'works' already since southern Idlib of 29 September 2015....
"are foreign volunteers in Ukraine something like ‘holier than holy’ because they’re volunteering to help defend the country, or helping Ukrainian civilians…?"
I think the difference is just Ukrainians do know Ukrainian and so read/listen reminders about it every day until they remember it, while foreign volunteers read/listen non-local news mostly, and so didn't get enough of reminders.
i'd guess they are not there in a military role so pretty much on their own
The same as the majority of Ukrainians, even in near-the-front-line cities. So, the point is the same: foreigners just do not read or listed local news, where Ukrainian officials remind people about these martial law features.
well i guess civilian ukrainians indeed are less likely to wear uniforms compared to civilian foreign volunteers
the thing is, a foreign civilian can get a flashy non-standard issue uniform (which is not against laws btw, it's just that ukrainian civilian is less likely to get their hands on it), but a russian agent doesn't care if it's ukrainian pixel or nato multicam
in fact he'd be inclined to report on spotted nato uniform (even if it's just a civilian)
1. My comment wasn't about foreigners wearing uniforms, it was about them "pull out their smartphones and start taking videos" (that's from Tom's post).
2. Pixels are actualy not that much ubiquitous thing on Ukrainian military personnel: it wasn't the only official uniform before the full-invasion-build-up, and with the full invasion build-up and uniform losses and wearing-down it became more rare - Ukrainian manufactures cannot catch-up the dozens-of-times jumped needs, and foreigh aid included uniforms in numbers. So, there are multicams and many other uniform types on Ukrainian military personnel. It's quite a zoo - that's why blue, yellow and green strips.
ah ok
although i do remember a few very public cases when foreign journalists were punished for publishing what they were not supposed to
re strips - my impression was it changed on rotational basis, sort of like temporary passwords
Nope. Just what kind of strips were in stores and not the color used by the enemy.
Supposedly foreign volunteers must be operating under AFU officers command and must be given instructions on OPSEC. Somebody somewhere didn't care.
Give us several dozens of thousands of officers to do it.
common , druje, there aren't hundrends of thousands of foreign volunteers. All those volunteers are going through some bootcamp. It's the lack of procedures and general fuck off attitude of both volunteers and our trainers/officers that leads to this type of events.
Don't get me started on Desna, Mykolaiv, Yavoriv and other mass casualty events that could have been avoided. Actually there's a witness account of one of the foreign volunteers (from the UK) where his good sense of self preservation lead him to sleeping far from Yavoriv barracks, thus saving his and others lives.
The are dozens of thousands of them, and they are operating in small groups, in and out of Ukraine, changing their composition, and there is no way to herd them by our usual military bureaucracy because bypassing this sluggish bureaucracy is the reason why we need volunteers.
As for this withness - did you listen him really? He said that there was a rat there, who commanded a return to the complex. Think of it again.
Oh, I understood the point of confusion. You're talking about military volunteers, yet these guys we are discussing weren't military - they were medics and charity deliveries. Military men have no such tendency, despite Ukrainian Foreign Legion being young and messy structure (and, honestly, Ukrainians as a nation never had a discernible inclination towards discipline; I think Ukrainian Armed Forces, whenever they'll go, will be always skewed to the low-lewel initiative and innovativeness, yet no Prussian-like hierarchical orderliness).
Said the wise man...
I really hope after this war, Syrians get some sort of international help. I think Ukrainians will be the best placed people to understand what they are going through. Otherwise, there's news Ukraine may be finally getting ATACMS and DPCIM artillery. These may be serious game changers
Thank you Tom.
BTW - everyone in Ukraine and ruzzia seems to agree that it was indeed Il-22m11 shot down by Wagner. The video might be from another time however.
Yes, it turned out an Il-22M was shot down - over the Belgorod area.
But, Il-22 is a four-engined aircraft: check the still from a video I've posted, it's clearly shown a twin-engined aircraft.
That photo and video seems to be from another event.
They definitely are. The question is: from what other event....?
If I hear what was it - I will post it here.
I can recall last year's shelling of a restaurant in Donetsk, during which the former head of the Russian space program, Rogozin, who was celebrating his birthday there, was wounded in the ass by a shell fragment and several civilians from among the restaurant staff were killed. I don't remember the coverage of this "terrorist attack" in the world's leading media, although the circumstances are very similar, civilians were killed.
nah mate, that was a private invite only event for top ruZZian brass
and they were living there for quite some time
Thanks