Cerebral Bore posted:

drat, imagine cruising down the street in one of these bad boys

Spergin Morlock posted:

haha just realized zelenskyy natively speaks Russian and has been taking Ukranian language lessons to get better SINCE TAKING OFFICE. what the gently caress

Nix Panicus posted:

Its just tank²

euphronius posted:

China is now demanding to know who blew up Nordstream

press.un.org posted:

Nineteen months on, the United Nations is not in a position to verify claims or reports made regarding attacks on the Nord Stream gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea, two senior officials told the Security Council today, as many delegates — while condemning attacks against civilian infrastructure and calling for accountability — cautioned that any politicization or speculation on this case is detrimental to revealing the truth.

Miroslav Jenča, Assistant Secretary-General for Europe, Central Asia and Americas, Departments of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs and Peace Operations, underscored that the UN has no additional details beyond publicly available information about the destruction of the Nord Stream gas pipelines in September 2022 and is not in a position to verify or confirm claims or reports made regarding the incident.

According to investigations conducted by Danish, German and Swedish authorities, leaks in the pipelines were caused by the use of explosives.  In February, Danish and Swedish authorities informed the Council about the closure of their respective investigations.  While stating that any intentional damage to critical civilian infrastructure should be condemned and investigated, he urged all actors to exercise restraint and await the conclusion of the remaining investigation.
…

Similarly, China’s delegate pointed out that the Swedish and Danish investigations have established no truth regarding this severe incident that undermined transnational energy infrastructure, with only scant information offered.  “One can’t help but suspect a hidden agenda behind the opposition to an international investigation,” he added.
…

Statements

The representative of the Russian Federation said that the destruction of the Nord Stream gas pipelines — condemned by all Council members — constitutes a direct threat to international peace and security.  The use of explosive devices to target pipelines at the bottom of the sea — valued at $17 billion — resulted in both critical damage to Nord Stream and severe environmental and navigational consequences.  On national investigations conducted by Germany, Denmark and Sweden, he said that — given their refusal to cooperate with Moscow — “we were sceptical”. Instead of supporting Moscow’s initiative to establish an independent international commission to investigate the incident under UN auspices, Western Council members disseminated empty letters. Despite recognizing that the pipelines were deliberately destroyed with explosives, they insisted that there were no grounds for continuing investigations.
…


The representative of China expressed regret that it has been more than 18 months with no conclusion reached. The explosion of the Nord Stream pipelines was a serious incident that undermined transnational energy infrastructure, he said, recalling that China and others have called for an objective, impartial and professional investigation to find out the truth as soon as possible and bring the perpetrators to justice.  Regarding the Swedish and Danish investigations, he noted that no truth has been established, with only scant information offered. “One can’t help but suspect a hidden agenda behind the opposition to an international investigation,” he added.
…

euphronius posted:

China is now demanding to know who blew up Nordstream

BearsBearsBears posted:

Russian soldier intercepts drone with bag of potatoes. Soldier is fine, status of potatoes is unclear at this time.

Ramrod Hotshot posted:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davida...sh=7ccd44624e64

there have been additional breakthroughs in the three days since this was posted

that $61 billion is paying dividends!

Ramrod Hotshot posted:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davida...sh=7ccd44624e64

there have been additional breakthroughs in the three days since this was posted

that $61 billion is paying dividends!

Nix Panicus posted:

What Ukraine needs now is a poo poo ton of missiles nukes. Not because that will turn around the ground war, because nothing short of another hundred thousand armed and trained Ukrainian soldiers is going to turn around the ground war, but because it lets Ukraine cause damage to Russia while they lose which is all the west has ever cared about

Orange Devil posted:

If it does that leads credence to the claim that English is a mind virus.

mawarannahr posted:

crepeface posted:

"To unite America and the entire world. The major thought this was his friend's will. But I think he never understood what she wanted. Before he ever walked, or cried - even before he was born - his mother tongue was English. He doesn't know the pain of losing his own language. Not yet. He cannot understand her will. I do. I was born in a small village. I was still a child when we were raided by soldiers. Foreign soldiers. Torn from my elders, I was made to speak their language. With each new post, my masters changed, along with the words they made me speak. Words are... peculiar. With each change, I changed too. My thoughts, personality, how I saw right and wrong... War changed me - and not only my visage. Words can kill. I was invaded by words, burrowing and breeding inside me. A philosopher once said, 'It is no nation we inhabit, but a language.' 'Make no mistake, our native tongue is our true fatherland.' My fatherland - my truth was stolen from me. And so was my past. All that's left is the future. And mine is revenge. On those who'd leech off the words of their fellow man. This is what I learned from the major. And then it hit me. It was he who should feel my wrath. He and the code he chose as basis for control. Language codes, information codes - beamed all around us - genetic codes spanning history. By controlling the codes, Cipher... Zero intends to unify the world. Codes implanted into our heads, sucking our minds dry as it spreads from one host to the next. A parasite upon the earth. That is what Zero is. As one born into this world, he's afflicted. I hold him responsible for killing my freedom. Killing all traces of my past... Killing any promise of a future... We are all but dead men forced to walk upon this earth. A world reduced to Zero. Cipher plans to use its codes to control the world. They think they can.

"And the 'mother tongue' of all those codes is English.

"The word became flesh. The final parasite.

"It knows English. An English strain of the vocal cord parasite.

"I will exterminate the English language. With this, I'll rid the world of infestation. All men will breathe free again - reclaim their past, present, and future. This is no ethnic cleanser. It is a 'liberator,' to free the world from Zero. Let the world be. Sans lingua franca, the world will be torn asunder. And then, it shall be free. People will suffer, of course - a phantom pain. The world will need a new common tongue. A language of nukes. My Metal Gears shall be the thread by which all countries are bound together, in equality. No words will be needed. Every man will be forced to recognize his neighbor. People will swallow their pain. They will link lost hands. And the world will become one.

"This war is peace."

Pride, feeds their blackened hearts

And the thirst, must be quenched, to fuel hypocrisy

Cleansing flames, is the only way to repent

Renounce, what made you

Words that kill, would you speak them to me

With your breath so still, it makes me believe

The Sins never die, can't wash this blood off our hands

Let the world fear us all, it's just means to an end

Our salvation lies, in the Father’s sins

Beyond the truth, let me suffer now

In my heart I just know that there's no way to light up the dark in his eyes

Whoahoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo whoaHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO whoaHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOooOOooOOooOOooOOOOOOOOOOOOOO whoHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO whoaHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

BearsBearsBears posted:

Russian soldier intercepts drone with bag of potatoes. Soldier is fine, status of potatoes is unclear at this time.

https://twitter.com/mikolahohol111/status/1783974471486816393

mawarannahr posted:

Spergin Morlock posted:

what the hell did he make zelenskyy do to agree to ship weapons to Ukraine lmao

crepeface posted:

"To unite America and the entire world. The major thought this was his friend's will. But I think he never understood what she wanted. Before he ever walked, or cried - even before he was born - his mother tongue was English. He doesn't know the pain of losing his own language. Not yet. He cannot understand her will. I do. I was born in a small village. I was still a child when we were raided by soldiers. Foreign soldiers. Torn from my elders, I was made to speak their language. With each new post, my masters changed, along with the words they made me speak. Words are... peculiar. With each change, I changed too. My thoughts, personality, how I saw right and wrong... War changed me - and not only my visage. Words can kill. I was invaded by words, burrowing and breeding inside me. A philosopher once said, 'It is no nation we inhabit, but a language.' 'Make no mistake, our native tongue is our true fatherland.' My fatherland - my truth was stolen from me. And so was my past. All that's left is the future. And mine is revenge. On those who'd leech off the words of their fellow man. This is what I learned from the major. And then it hit me. It was he who should feel my wrath. He and the code he chose as basis for control. Language codes, information codes - beamed all around us - genetic codes spanning history. By controlling the codes, Cipher... Zero intends to unify the world. Codes implanted into our heads, sucking our minds dry as it spreads from one host to the next. A parasite upon the earth. That is what Zero is. As one born into this world, he's afflicted. I hold him responsible for killing my freedom. Killing all traces of my past... Killing any promise of a future... We are all but dead men forced to walk upon this earth. A world reduced to Zero. Cipher plans to use its codes to control the world. They think they can.

"And the 'mother tongue' of all those codes is English.

"The word became flesh. The final parasite.

"It knows English. An English strain of the vocal cord parasite.

"I will exterminate the English language. With this, I'll rid the world of infestation. All men will breathe free again - reclaim their past, present, and future. This is no ethnic cleanser. It is a 'liberator,' to free the world from Zero. Let the world be. Sans lingua franca, the world will be torn asunder. And then, it shall be free. People will suffer, of course - a phantom pain. The world will need a new common tongue. A language of nukes. My Metal Gears shall be the thread by which all countries are bound together, in equality. No words will be needed. Every man will be forced to recognize his neighbor. People will swallow their pain. They will link lost hands. And the world will become one.

"This war is peace."

Pride, feeds their blackened hearts

And the thirst, must be quenched, to fuel hypocrisy

Cleansing flames, is the only way to repent

Renounce, what made you

Words that kill, would you speak them to me

With your breath so still, it makes me believe

The Sins never die, can't wash this blood off our hands

Let the world fear us all, it's just means to an end

Our salvation lies, in the Father’s sins

Beyond the truth, let me suffer now

In my heart I just know that there's no way to light up the dark in his eyes

Whoahoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo whoaHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO whoaHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOooOOooOOooOOooOOOOOOOOOOOOOO whoHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO whoaHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Spergin Morlock posted:

haha just realized zelenskyy natively speaks Russian and has been taking Ukranian language lessons to get better SINCE TAKING OFFICE. what the gently caress

mawarannahr posted:

euphronius posted:

China is now demanding to know who blew up Nordstream

BearsBearsBears posted:

Russian soldier intercepts drone with bag of potatoes. Soldier is fine, status of potatoes is unclear at this time.

https://twitter.com/mikolahohol111/status/1783974471486816393

quote:

Fearful that the frontline could crack last summer, Ukraine’s commanders deployed the Azov infantry brigade to the sector. Their task was and is to repel what “Maslo”, a 29-year-old staff sergeant with the unit’s first battalion, described as “constant assaults, every day, sometimes for 24 hours”. Occasionally the brigade makes dangerous counterattacks on foot.

Poor visibility, perhaps 30 metres where the wood is thicker, and a mismatch of equipment makes the fight harder. Maslo, whose call sign translates as butter, described a “more or less stable” artillery mismatch of five to one in favour of the Russians, though he believes it is closer to 10 to one in the most intense sectors of the front, such as during the winter battle of Avdiivka, which fell to the invaders in February.

Russian drone attacks are also proliferating, the soldier added, reflecting a successful shift by Moscow towards a war economy. But perhaps the most serious problem the defenders face are Russian glide bombs, air-launched from as far as 70km away by Su-34 and Su-35 jets. These are moderately accurate weapons that, if they happen to land on target, can wreak havoc on targets below.

Makas, a staff sergeant in the second battalion, says “as many as 100 to 150 glide bombs can be launched into a sector a day”, a statement that suggests official Ukrainian military claims that 3,500 hit the frontlines in the first 77 days of the year may be an underestimate. The weapons can carry 500kg or 1.5 tonnes of explosives, the latter of which can “blow a crater 30 metres wide and 7 to 10 metres deep”, he says.

The larger bombs are understandably feared by soldiers on the frontline – and intercepting them or the aircraft that launch them is the task of air defence – of which Ukraine is short – or possibly F-16 fighter jets armed with long-range missiles, although few expect the western jets to be ready, with trained pilots, much before the end of the year, and their final numbers are uncertain.

[....]

Such imbalances in weaponry, caused by the long hiatus in US military aid that only ended this week and the slow development of European arms production, have begun to affect Ukrainian morale. Senior figures acknowledge privately that mobilising more men to fight is becoming challenging, with some fleeing the country or considering it – while others focus on finding units where commanders will not expose them to unnecessary risks.

It is estimated that Russia had 400,000 soldiers fighting in Ukraine until recently, a figure that is rising to 500,000 – creating an immediate need for more defenders, as well as replacing casualties (the official average of Ukrainian soldiers killed a month is about 1,300 and the number of wounded at least three times that). There is a widespread expectation that Moscow will try to launch a more intense offensive shortly, although there are signs the step-up has already begun.

[....]

Ukrainian military intelligence has estimated that 20,000 to 25,000 Russians are massing west of Bakhmut near Chasiv Yar, hoping to seize high ground in the central Donbas – but more significantly there are signs of a 5km Russian bridgehead forming north-west of Avdiivka.

[....]

In the immediate term, experts believe that it will take further rounds of military aid to reverse Ukraine’s deteriorating fortunes, including at least seven more Patriot anti-missile batteries to protect its cities and suppress bombardment at the front. “So far, this is not a counteroffensive package for Ukraine, and there is no real prospect of a counteroffensive this year. The next year will be tough and it may well be that Ukraine will have to cede more territory before it stabilises,” says Matthew Savill, an analyst with London’s Royal United Services Institute (Rusi) thinktank.

What is hard to evaluate is the damage caused by US Republicans’ withholding of funding for Ukraine, and Europe’s pace of building up industrial support. Although soldiers on the frontline such as Makas report that “10 or 15 Russians are killed for every Ukrainian”, the team at Rusi believe, grimly, that Russia can sustain a casualty rate of about 20,000 to 30,000 month (roughly the current levels) for about another year, allowing Moscow’s forces to attack all along the frontline.

Ukraine, a much smaller country, has to find a way of mobilising more younger people. “The average age of the Ukrainian army is 43,” Savill says, “and that means Ukraine is going to have to mobilise more young people, who they have so far been trying to protect.” By the time western military industrial production peaks towards the end of the year, as predicted by Kyiv, more Ukrainian lives will have been lost – and Savill argues, the rest of 2024 may be about the defenders trying to wear the Russian aggressors out sometime after 2025.

In the woods around Lyman there is a different perspective, however. While a handful of brigades have struggled in the latest phase of fighting, Azov says it has defeated the Russian attackers in the Serebryansky forest. The 5,000-plus strong brigade has shed any far-right associations, relentlessly emphasised in Russian pre-invasion propaganda, and is one of the military’s elite forces, comprised entirely of volunteers. Members say there is a waiting list for recruits, allowing it to pick and chose.

“Tavr” Bohdan Krotevych, Azov’s chief of staff, 31, argues that high morale, unit cohesion and a willingness to allow all ranks to be heard, not necessarily shown elsewhere, was a key to success – contrasting the style with the traditional “old fart” hierarchical model of Soviet command. A culture of “mutual respect” is intended to ensure soldiers’ lives are not wasted and the commander emphasises the young age profile of the brigade, with an average age “on the south side of 35”, adding if you are young “you have attitude, you are competitive, you have stuff to prove”.

High morale and fresh thinking in Ukraine’s better units will not be sufficient to win a war of national survival, and the stop-start nature of western support in practice (despite upbeat statements made by political leaders) frustrates many Ukrainian soldiers. Tavr complains that the west has so far only supplied weapons to produce “a stalemate that is perhaps comfortable for the west, even though civilians keep dying”, noting that at least eight were killed in bombing in and around Dnipro city last week.

Nix Panicus posted:

While nation states have a bad rep (thanks, Adolf), on a broader level it's also a consideration IMO that nations like Ukraine have their own language and cultural heritage that people think is worth protecting. I'm an old, out-of-shape goon so I wouldn't be much use in a fight, but I'd fight to save my family or, in the abstract, my language. Finland is a pretty small country compared to Ukraine, population-wise, too, so I would hope people here felt proud enough about our language and what little culture we have, and I would assume many Ukrainians feel the same about their own home. I realize I am chatting with my posting buddies here in a language that isn't actually mine, but I get the impression that since the US is comprised of all sorts of "national identities" and languages and so forth, it might be easy to forget that nations have (contrived and mostly bull-poo poo, but still) reasons for existing for the sake of their people. If General Ripper went ape-poo poo and nuked the physical location of Finland into glass, that wouldn't erase Finnish language from the world, or even Finnish culture. But the people I'd trust the most with making sure Finland keeps on truckin' on are, well, I guess Finnish politicians who are mostly awful but at least they know where their bread is buttered. And all the other fine folk who work for their communities.

I can understand the general mentality of FYGM in the sense that war is awful and no one wants to fight in one except for people with mental problems, but I wouldn't leave Finland if we were attacked. My grandfather had to escape his home due to Stalin's war, and I wouldn't wish that on anyone.

I hope this isn't too chauvinistic, but I think there are things worth defending in this world. Even if you die in the process.

quote:

....The Vyshyvany brothers were the first deaths from Duliby and the surrounding community after Russia began its full-scale invasion on Feb. 24, 2022. Since then, 44 more Ukrainian soldiers from the area have been killed — more than four times the local death toll from the previous eight years of fighting Russian-backed separatists in the east.

For Duliby and its surrounding enclave of Khodoriv — total population around 24,000 people — waiting for the next solemn death notification and the funeral that follows has become a bitter routine. But even as the town meets and buries the fallen with modest ceremony, some neighbors are quietly weighing the price they are willing to pay for a war with no end in sight.

Divisions have started to form between residents agnostic about the war — often those whose family members have dodged the draft or fled the country — and those who have loved ones on the front line or who fully support the war effort.

In the earliest days of the war, before the news of the first combat deaths arrived, people in communities across Ukraine flocked to draft offices. Among them was Khodoriv, whose families have a long history of fighting for Ukraine’s independence and being executed or sent into exile during violent Soviet repressions of its nationalist movement in the last century.

[....]

As the war has ground on, the Khodoriv government has taken over the logistics of organizing funerals, and, inevitably, somber repetition has helped smooth the process. Public services have been moved to a central square, each time gathering crowds of people.

“Now everyone knows what kind of coffins, standards and what the procedure is,” Ms. Bodnar said from her apartment in Khodoriv last month.

Last fall, the deaths of locals mounted, and residents sought a visible commemoration of loss to go beyond the daily church services that drew dozens of faithful. So new memorial plaques of rock and bronze were hung on the outer walls of schools the killed soldiers had attended.

At those schools, people also honored the fallen with memorials of flowers and candles. But some parents complained that the offerings were too grim to look at and should be removed, said Olha Melnyk, 46, the head of the social services department in the Khodoriv administration. They were opposed to having their children reminded of the war happening hundreds of miles to the east.

[....]

By 2023, the lines at draft offices across the country slowly disappeared as most volunteers had already gone to the front. New recruits were mostly summoned by draft notices given out in waves, based on the army’s needs, to men aged 27 to 60.

But gradually, the military has increased efforts to recruit soldiers, with some draft offices forcibly taking people from the streets to speed up the process. In the past six months, that tactic — widely known as forced mobilization — has frequently made headlines in Ukraine, symptomatic of the chronic troop shortage, which culminated this month in the government’s decision to lower the draft age in Ukraine to 25.

About 600 people from the Khodoriv community were serving in the army as of March, local authorities said, including over a dozen men from Duliby itself, some of whom were drafted from the streets. Men have since begun to avoid staying out during daylight, residents said.

“Everyone is afraid. No one wants to die,” said Bohdan, a school employee who declined to provide his surname for the fear of repercussions from the Ukrainian authorities.

[....]

In the Khodoriv area, relatives of soldiers who are fighting or who have died at the front said that in the last two years they have begun to resent men in the community who are said to have bought their way out of service while their own sons and fathers are fighting — a feeling that may be shared by many across the country as the Ukrainian government wrestles with how to mobilize up to 500,000 more troops.

“Sometimes people want to devalue the sacrifice of such families to justify themselves buying their sons out,” said Marta Hladii, 51, a therapist from nearby Stryi who works with the military and their families for free. Of the five mothers spoken to by Ms. Hladii who had lost their only sons to the war, she said two were criticized by neighbors for not bribing their way out of the military to protect them.

[....]

One of the most recent soldiers to be buried in Khodoriv showed up to the fight willingly.

As a child growing up in Khodoriv, a 9-year-old Nazar Yankevych attended the funeral of a local activist, Roman Tochyn, who was shot in the head during Ukraine’s Maidan revolution, the protests in 2014 that renounced pervasive Russian influence on Ukraine.

“After that funeral, he told our mom, ‘When I grow up, I’ll go to war,’” said his sister Maria Yankevych.

Her brother had been accepted to a technology training program just before Russia invaded but instead went to a military training camp, she said, and joined an elite assault unit.

Mr. Yankevych was 19 when he died in combat in February outside the eastern Ukrainian city of Avdiivka. The shrapnel piece that killed him left a mark on his temple, the same place as the bullet that hit his hero 10 years earlier.

“A lot of young guys from all over Ukraine wrote to me,” his sister said, after she posted about him on Instagram. They wrote: “‘Your brother is a hero to me, I want to be like him.’”

crepeface posted:

it doesn't sound chauvinistic to me. i posted the skullface rant semi-ironically but i've been thinking about the nation state and how it ties into ethnicity and language a lot recently in response to some truly deranged takes about "han supremacy" and also how modern china integrates uyghurs, other minorities, HK and other dialects (my grandfathers both spoke different, mutually unintelligible languages that i never learnt).

Officer Sandvich posted:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/27/elite-force-bucks-trend-of-ukrainian-losses-on-eastern-front

Elite force bucks trend of Ukrainian losses on eastern front

Ardennes posted:

From a Russian perspective it is necessary because it is inevitable. It is inevitable because NATO simply can’t accept peace.

Nix Panicus posted:

I find it almost scammy in the way the money is utilized. I bet if UA was just given money to buy poo poo they need a lot of their material woes would be solved much faster. Like, let them buy 1000 abrams if they want to. Poland bought 250 Abrams tanks for 1 billion as comparison.