That building, on the 6th floor, contains a gym with a two lane swimming pool. I visited when I moved to Kyiv, about two months ago, when I looking to find a pool. I can see the building from my apartment (I'm on the 15th floor). I heard the strikes, this morning, at about 9.30am, and saw the plume of smoke rising from the impact site. There were more strikes, about 30 minutes later, a lot further away, and out of sight, so I don't know where they were.
> I have relocated to Kyiv, mainly because with what’s going
> on I feel on an emotional level compelled to be here, to
> stand against the horrors.
> [...]
> The route was Cambridge -> London -> Bruxelles
> -> Köln -> Berlin -> Przemyśl (Polish border town)
> -> Kyiv.
I was in Odessa for holiday in July. Very cheap airbnb, but there was night lockdown and pubs were closing early. Also beaches were closed (mines) but nobody cared.
Sun and sea :) And also price. Greece, Croatia, Turkey etc were bloody expensive this summer. Odessa is just 3 hours by bus from Chisinau that has regular flights.
Odessa is normally home to a great club scene too. The "Ibiza" club is easily one of the best in the world, regularly attracts top DJs like Black Coffee.
The food scene isn't incredible, but pretty good for Eastern Europe. Dacha restaurant is excellent. The city itself is beautiful with heavy French vibes, and of course from an European point of view it's filled with very conventionally attractive people.
Why not? Kiev was a safe place to live until the current escalation. For example, much safer than the city of Donetsk and other cities close to the front line which are under fire almost daily since the beginning of the operation, many of them since at least 8 years, though not at such intensity.
(added later) For the context, I'm Russian. Right now, there's a refugee family from Mariupol (you know, that city in Donbass that got almost completely destroyed) living in one of my two flats. They lost all they had. They lived in a damp basement with nearly no food for a month and a half. They buried their neighbors personally, and also the school teacher of their kid. A marauder wannabe nearly shot them, and then his commander nearly did the same after they complained, for "lying about his soldiers". Their son lost a hand after a tank shell hit their home. If you're also in Russia, we can connect and you'll see them in person, to look the kid in the eye and tell him about the suffering of Donbass people.
>Do you really think they have been killing their own people for years
Obviously yes. The whole Donbas war was started by FSB Colonel and bunch of irregular troops coming from russia. Russia's post-2014 strategy was to destroy Ukraine from inside, by prolonged conflict. This backfired, and Ukraine united instead of being divided, like before 2014 by russian agents like Medvedchuk or Yanukovych.
>destroying their own pipelines and bridges
Only relevant destruction of pipelines and bridges before 24.02 was done by retreating FSB led irregular russian troops in 2014.
>only to use it as an excuse to bomb infrastructure in the Ukraine?
They mostly bomb civilian infrastructure and dwellings, not military one because their intelligence and precision missles sucks.
>By that logic, I assume Russia will soon drop a nuclear bomb in Sankt Petersburg in order to have an excuse to continue their operation in the Ukraine.
They will need to do stuff like this only if they continue to lose, not with nuclear or so. Russia and especially Putin is known for targeting it's own citizen to cause war frenzy - that's how he got elected and caused war, by bombing Moscow. Google "ryazan sugar".
>>Do you really think they have been killing their own people for years
It's not Russia killing their own people. It's Russia killing some unlucky pawns, whether in staged attacks or by forcibly "mobilizing" all the men they find there and sending them into the meat grinder.
To me Russia seems on a mission to capture as much territory from Ukraine they can and punish and destroy everything they can't capture. To cross the borders, Russia NEEDED a pretext and in order to justify their further destruction they continue to need these pretexts and I think they manufacture them - killing civilians in DNR and LNR. Ukraine does not need pretexts to defend itself nor to recover its legal territories. And yes, I think Putin personally is capable of nuclear false flag if that would enable him to achieve his objectives in Ukraine. He already sacrificed thousands of troops and billions in materials for some lame territorial gains he's not even able to hold. Putin would easily nuke 50k of his men if that would guarantee him Ukraine and remaining in power.
Go look for Patrick Lancaster on Youtube since 5 years ago. And you will know you have been on the wrong side by saying false flag in Donetsk. American have been doing false flag even worst than what you imagined of Russian is doing since Teddy's time.
I know some people probably got injured or died but I just cannot help but wonder about two things. First, did the damage drain the pool. Second, if it did drain out what does a large pool draining out the 6th floor of a building look like? Does it end up leaking out from all sides? Does it just leak into the building in a way that isn’t visible from the outside? Does it cascade out, leaking entirely from one side via some unlikely but structurally possible crack that sprays it all in the direction of one side of the building where there happened to be a damaged window…
It’s by far the least important thing in the circumstances of this tragedy and my heart goes out to those affected by the important aspects of this strike. But I am simultaneously mesmerised by the how unlikely it is that you get a sudden and dramatic draining of a volume of water this big this high off the ground, I mean if you demolished a building you would drain the pool first, if you think the building might collapse you’ll drain the pool to remove extra load on the structure well before anything goes wrong… it’s just so unlikely that a full pool would be drained like this.
I would assume it would primarily go through the elevator shafts and emergency staircases. But water has a way to go through random paths. I live in a concrete building, a neighbour had a leak toward the center of the building, the water made its way through underneath the apartment floors and started pouring from the facade though I couldn’t see any opening.
Curious about what was where it actually hit. Seems pretty clear Samsung was not the target. Electrical substation "across the street" would be a probable target, but was missed.
I.e., did it hit a plausibly intended target, or miss?
To my eye, the missile struck the roof of the low building next to the Samsung tower. The buildings there, as far as I know from looking at them, are light commerical - restaurants, shops, etc.
It's most certainly a miss. People have this weird perception due to all the modern propoganda with the tomahawk missile and such that military equipment is now 100% accurate and reliable. In reality these are still physical objects that are subject to mechanical failure/enemy action/entropy/whatever and the average failure rate is still such that you have to send a volley of 3 or 4 guided missiles downrange to absolutely guarantee a kill.
> this weird perception due to all the modern propoganda with the tomahawk missile and such that military equipment is now 100% accurate and reliable
The accuracy of Russian munitions has been demonstrably lower than NATO standard [1]. They’re also running low on good munitions, leading e.g. to land strikes by surface-to-air S-300s [2].
There are always more specific targets in an area that cause more trouble destroyed than others. Blowing up a playground when nobody is there has to be counted as a miss when an electrical substation is nearby.
45 out of 80 missiles shot down. I suspect they're not on a high alert right now away from the frontline, so that sounds like a good result. I wonder if I'm right or is the system mostly automated and "being ready" wouldn't make a difference.
This "system" mostly consists of men on duty with MANPADS. They either shoot the missile down or, if they don't manage to because it flies overhead too quickly, call the next guy in the direction it flew to, informing them that a missile is incoming for that direction (it will be a short time, 1-2 minutes). So the next guy will be fully prepared and knows where to look. That simple.
If missiles flew too high for MANPADS, they'd be very easily shot down by proper SAMs or fighters, they survive by flying under the radar.
Well "automated" deserves some quotes. The main point was "can they be more ready and more efficient the next time", whether "automated" means automatic response, or something beeping at a person with a launcher, or more people with MANPADs.
It's not like "next time". This is not an unprecedented attack. Russians simply launched a week's worth of missiles in one hour. That's what they can produce + restore from Soviet stocks. There is no "escalation" in that sense, they simply caused "shock and awe" by concentrating everything they normally shoot in a week, in one salvo.
Yes that's about how it works. Around a 100 of these groups of 3-4 guys strategically placed all over Ukraine is enough to ensure ~50% losses of those missiles. Less if they are given a pickup truck so they can move ~10km laterally in ~10 min.
If so, provoking this Russian vengeance strike is the best feat of the Ukrainian army by a mile. If you can bleed 1 billion in military spending with the cost of a few deaths and an lorry filled with explosives, that's by far the most effective way to win a war: you will quickly bankrupt Russia while your own army is still able to fight.
Sounds much like the V2 rocket program used by Hitler to punish the British for their continental bombing incursions; it was largely irrelevant militarily but very expensive.
Do you know how much money ru gets from fuels alone? From eu region alone? Billions... This means ru can shot for days these kind of rockets and they will still be at profit... I really doubt Ukr is wants this kind of terror. Loosing civilians can be sometimes much worse compared to loosing troops
No one wants to see civilians die. But killing civilians doesn't change Ukrainian military strength at all.
That's why such an attack is stupid and barbaric. It changes nothing about the war and just manages to waste Russian money and kill innocent people.
If Russia's best response is really just attacking Universities and parks, it means that the Ukrainian army is invisible to Russia and Russia has no ability to strike the troops.
Russia seemingly just confirmed what we all were thinking, they have no ability to beat the Ukrainian army anymore, and have decided to simply attack civilians out of frustration.
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In contrast, the destruction of the Crimean bridge destroys one of two railroads that are supplying the Russian army in the south. Logistics for troop supplies are ruined.
The strategic implications are obvious, and Russia seemingly has no way to stop the Ukrainian southern counter-offensive... And now has roughly 1/2 of the military supplies moving forward.
Except they haven't only destroyed universities and parks. They have also hit the power plants in most of the cities. Kharkov was out of electricity in the morning, so were parts of other major cities. Now imagine electricity being out but in winter.
As I said earlier: it'd suck. But it wouldn't hamper the Ukrainian military at all.
Indeed, this is likely going to have the opposite effect. Ukrainians are going to ask NATO for even more weapons, such as anti-missile systems and better air defenses. Making the Ukrainian military even more powerful.
I really don't think that this terrorism of civilians is a good strategy at all. Everyone has accepted the fact that civilians are "soft targets" that are incredibly difficult (maybe impossible) to defend. We don't need a reminder from Russia for that fact.
All these attacks do is prove the depravity of the Russians. Not just of Putin, but also the military commanders who carried out and executed these attacks.
Russia is a net food exporter, but probably they do not grow all they need. Smuggling needed foreign tech, and laundering money, has to be expensive. Paying off internal supporters might be a bigger drain.
Russia's major limitation is not in its exports. The sanctions are designed to prevent it from importing critical military technology that would allow it to replenish its weapons stocks. Apparently this is causing major problems for missile manufacturers. Eventually Russia will find ways to replace these suppliers (with likely inferior ones) but by they don't have time for that now.
With current sanctions, Russia can still earn money selling fuel to the EU, sure, but they have trouble spending it! They are already using more older missiles, having gone through the majority of their newer ones at the beginning of their invasion, when they thought it would be quick and easy.
They do have thousands of missiles left, although mostly the older, smaller ones as far as anyone can tell, and it's not easy for them to replace any of them.
Over 85% of the components in rockets like Kalibr and other high accuracy cruise missiles are sourced outside Russia, much of it formerly coming from the West. While they may or may not have the money to pay for new missiles, Russia continues to have a difficult time replacing those losses. Russia had very large stockpiles of these missiles before the war, but they've chewed through them at a prodigious rate. From all estimates I've read, they are feeling the pinch, because their logistics are a mess on a good day and the sanctions make sustainment (particularly for high precision munitions) very challenging. Russian logistics were not designed for this type of long, drawn out campaign and it is showing on the battlefield.
And it has to spend billions to do anything including mantaining it's production capability. I doubt they are profiting from war. No war is profitable on the short term even when it goes according to plan which definitely isn't the case.
I'm guessing the whole thing is a show that any of those missiles might have had a nuclear bomb in, and Ukraine would have very little chance of shooting it down, since they wouldn't know which one to aim at.
I'd guess it's a negotiating tactic... The actual targets are mostly irrelevant.
I'm curious, could they? I don't know anything about missiles, but it would seem logical that it takes a specific missile and detonation system to deliver a nuke. Could any missile delivery system carry a nuke?
OSINT community is monitoring ru nuclear infrastructure, no doubt US military is doing the same using mil sats. Im fairly confident US will know if ru are preparing to load nuclear warheads, and will pass this information (maybe, depending on US own agenda, how close to elections etc) just like they were sending constant escalating warnings (sadly ignored) in February.
I wouldn’t say the warnings in February were ignored. Sure they were publicly downplayed but it’s clear the Ukrainians had been preparing and they crushed the force that attempted to take Kyiv.
>"There was no decision to transfer the plane anywhere. You could do Rzeszów, you could do Leipzig. Why Leipzig? Because on January 26th, there was an appeal to management from the [NATO Support and Procurement Agency] via [Antonov Logistics (Germany)] for the relocation of all our aircraft. Flight personnel, personnel, spare parts, etc [could be transported] to Leipzig in light of a possible war. There was no answer to this inquiry...And as I said, there was no strong-willed decision to transfer [the aircraft] between February 15th and 23rd.
>U.S. President Joe Biden said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky ignored warnings that Russia would invade his country ahead of the February 24 aggression.
“I know a lot of people thought I was maybe exaggerating, but I knew, and we had data to sustain, he was going in off the border. There was no doubt. And Zelensky did not want to hear it, nor did a lot of people,” Biden said on Friday, June 10, during a political fundraiser in Los Angeles.
> “I know a lot of people thought I was maybe exaggerating, but I knew, and we had data to sustain, he was going in off the border. There was no doubt. And Zelensky did not want to hear it, nor did a lot of people,” Biden said on Friday, June 10, during a political fundraiser in Los Angeles.
Yet Ukrainian military surely took it time to escalate the shelling of Donetsk and Lugansk in February, as seen from OSCE reports.
Because Kyiv claimed to have air defences that could stop these attacks. This proves those air defences wouldn't protect them - the air defences only managed to defend against just over half, which is pretty bad odds if some of those were nuclear warheads.
It's intended. They know perfectly well how imprecise the missiles are, so they target center-of-population density basically. Then at least something will be hit.
Brings to mind Israel's frequent bombing of Gaza. They might have more precise missiles, but the the human density in Gaza is much greater, leading to more deaths, you can hardly blow a dynamite without bringing a whole building down.
Why? What are the main limitations for precision? US switching off GPS? Glonass not up to the job? Is it a speed thing? Hard to get a position lock? Do you really need ultra accurate precision IMUs to compensate?
I am pretty sure they are not deliberately targeting a random samsung R&D center. They may do a deliberate random shelling of civilians but I don’t think this is the work of a precision strike.
In this case, they probably deliberately targeted cogeneration power plant that's on the other side of the street across Samsung building: 50.43989630439777, 30.495928103654656
That's what Google Maps copy by default. It would require me to purposefully delete some of the numbers and decrease precision, and I'm not sure what purpose would it fulfill.
Seems insane given the discrediting of this kind of civilian targeting after WWII, where it was clearly demonstrated to increase a population’s willingness to keep fighting.
Imputing rational behavior might be a mistake in this instance.
But more likely, the actually intended target was something nearby, and we hear about Samsung because we (are assumed to) have more interest in Samsung.
> ...and we hear about Samsung because we (are assumed to) have more interest in Samsung.
Or there's more propaganda/strategic value in portraying Samsung as being deliberately attacked. Samsung seems like it's a kind of "national champion," and maybe an attack against it will be felt somewhat like an attack against South Korea itself. Also they're a supplier of advanced electronics and electronic components, so turning the corporation against Russia would be valuable in disrupting Russian supply chains.
But that's what internal russian population demands. As soon as it's clear they are losing on the battlefield and are unable to capture Ukraine, they at least want to destroy it economically.
For a fraction of the others yes it does. And that is a loud fraction, which also completely controls the media. Putin had to make the Ukrainians hurt at this point because his minions are whipped into such a fervor from recent defeats
I’d never question Russian intelligence Or military capabilities.
Nothing they say can be taken at face value, nothing they do can either. These guys are chess masters, after all.
I don’t want to make it sound, and any way that I like these assholes, I mean Fuck Putin. These pricks are incapable of even understanding decent human behavior, and have spread so many lies that I’m pretty convinced they have lost grip on reality and truth.
That having been said, everything about this illegal Ukraine invasion is tainted with spy games and propaganda. Dead “civilians”? Targeting Samsung? Inaccurate weapons? I don’t buy any of it. When it comes to this conflict, it’s a matter of faith: do you think The Nations who stand against (that asshole) Putin are good and justified? If so, then just keep the faith and don’t trust what you read. The alternative is to subject yourself to a carnival ride of fake news and lies that will leave your head spinning.
"I don’t buy any of it. When it comes to this conflict, it’s a matter of faith: do you think The Nations who stand against (that asshole) Putin are good and justified? If so, then just keep the faith and don’t trust what you read. The alternative is to subject yourself to a carnival ride of fake news and lies that will leave your head spinning."
Old tactic from Goebbels, spread lies and facts evenly, so that no one believes ANY facts from any side anymore, people are effectively demoralised. You can see the effect of that tactics in vonwoodson's and many others' posts. Maybe we will have antidote for that after this war, but I doubt it.
Just like Goebbels found out, and these guys will find out too, this only works if the audience is not deeply interested in the subject. For someone interested, the perpetrator only looks foolish. And Ukraine is doing a great job of keeping the worldwide people interested and on their side .
They ran out of their top tier surface to surface missiles and can't make new ones so they now mainly switched now using S300 anti-aircraft missiles which has a ground attack option but terrible accuracy.
Because they didn't learn their lesson from the 20th century that targeting civilians doesn't break resolve but reinvigorates it by making them hate you more.
Civilian targets are easier to hit because it doesn't matter what you're firing at specifically as the goal isn't destruction of specific targets but spreading terror. Hitting a military outpost needs to be much more precise because hitting an open patch nearby will do nothing but hitting a plaza or park will still inflict terror by maiming nearby civilians.
I wonder if this was true in Germany or Japan during WW2 when the USA was firebombing cities (later nuking) and thereby mass murdering civilians. Did that strengthen the resolve of the German and Japanese people, or weaken it?
I remember reading something about how it didn't weaken resolve in Japan specifically because people were already prepared to fight until the last man. Presumably Ukranians are also prepared to do the same.
As for this specific attack, I wonder if the goal is to get global companies to fear operating in Ukraine, resulting in the same effects as if they'd been sanctioned.
Not sure about Germany or Japan, but I remember reading that bombing campaign didn't manage to hurt morale in Britain. As for Ukraine - can't speak for everyone - but personally I feel that it's preferable to die fighting than to give up my country and then perish in one of the waves of ethnic cleansing.
Japan being ruled autocratically, their civilian resolve might not have mattered much.
Blockade eliminating fuel imports had them ready to surrender already. The nukes were meant to scare Russia. But Russia already knew all about the nukes. So, in the end the nukes and the other civil firestorms were just war crimes. But the victor is not prosecuted.
Good, because the claim is false. When the emperor decided to surrender, he faced a coup attempt. This was after two atomic bombs and the Russian invasion of Manchuria ("the twin shocks").
They were, in fact, out of fuel and unable to operate heavy industry, and faced disaster. That the generals had personal opinions they were empowered to act upon did not change the objective fact that as a nation they could no longer wage war, nukes or no nukes.
The emperor wanted to negotiate a surrender. They ended up with an "unconditional" surrender, but with an under the table promise to allow the emperor to keep his title.
Perhaps because of the vengeful clamour in Russia's media to punish Ukraine with strikes on civilian infrastructure and give Ukrainians a dark freezing winter.
Front line strikes have limited value where the line is long and troop concentrations are dispersed.
> Front line strikes have limited value where the line is long and troop concentrations are dispersed.
The Russians failed to strike RADAR, air-defenses, airplanes / fighters, drones, helicopters, or any other powerful (and expensive) targets. They were unable to strike M777 or HIMARS, or ammunition depos.
This means that the Russians do not have the intelligence, or capability, to strike at military targets. Or they're too stupid to understand proper SEAD operations or why the ammo-dumps are useful to blow up.
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Ukraine only has 120-ish M777 guns. Why didn't Russia just blow up all the M777 guns? Its not a big number. Or what about the 12 HIMARS launchers they're using? Its an incredibly small number of HIMARS.
Answer: Russia is incapable of doing so. They either don't have the intelligence to find them, or they are too well defended that Russia didn't think such strikes would be successful.
- Russia's intelligence can't compete with all the intelligence and counterintelligence that multiple more capable countries are providing to Ukraine. Not to mention that all those intelligence sources are not target-able by Russia obviously because they don't want to fight NATO directly. So Russia can't even exhaust those intelligence resources.
- Ukraine is a huge country and they are doing a good job defending their critical assets and don't forget they have best in class training and intelligence to help them just do that.
- Russia has destroyed many military targets during the conflicts. Obviously both sides lie about their casualties.
- Ukraine is backed by west and receives new supplies every day. Much more than publicized. The 12 HIMARS is not real. The actual figures are never shared, as it would be too foolish to give such information to the enemy.
> It's because Ukraine has no military infrastructure to speak of, anymore. The common tactic thus far was to station military staff and supplies in civilian buildings, move them out before a strike if possible, then release a news report how Russians are targeting civilian installations. There is a reason this keeps happening, no one spends a billion dollars just shooting missiles at random.
Russia 100% does, or else, if they where actually hitting military targets with these missiles they would of won the war by now.
Russia uses these terror strikes on civilians as a method of waging war, an attempt to get the enemy to surrender.
It's an act of terror, and just one of many war crimes Russia commits weekly.
Every single city in Ukraine that Russia has occupied and subsequently left, and why not throw in Chechnya for fun as well.
Russia is incapable of conducting proper military operations, its why they rely on their 20th century terror tactics. They haven't learnt that these tactics don't work all the time and can at times just embolden the populace against the enemy.
"The attacks lasted eleven weeks and, according to various estimates, in between 1,200 and 2,500 people were killed. Many buildings, businesses, schools, health centres, media headquarters and cultural monuments were severely damaged or destroyed. A group of economists from the G17 Plus party has estimated the total damages to be about 29.6 billion dollars."
"Ukrainian officials also reported that at least 95% of the city had been destroyed during the fighting, largely by Russian bombardments"
"The United Nations stated it had confirmed the deaths of 1,348 civilians, but said the true death toll was likely thousands higher, and added that 90% of the city's residential buildings had been damaged or destroyed"
> It's because Ukraine has no military infrastructure to speak of, anymore
That seems unlikely. We know that the Ukrainians are launching hundreds of HIMARS rockets, drones, M777 artillery strikes, and more. Those weapons are stored _somewhere_, and its intelligence's job to find them.
When an ammo-dump blows up, we know what it looks like. The Russians are incapable of hitting ammo dumps (or unwilling). Either way, it just means that the Ukrainian military will continue to use HIMARS / M777 artillery to push the front line further.
At a minimum, if these attacks were truly "successful", then the HIMARS / M777 attacks would stop. But... they won't. Its blatantly obvious that Ukraine wasn't hiding their HIMARS in an open playground in Kyiv.
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So while Russia continues to attack dog-parks and universities, Ukraine continues to attack training centers, command posts, ammo dumps, and supply routes.
The difference is palpable. Its clear who is winning the war.
I'm not sure if there's a real response to these Russian terror attacks unfortunately. But Ukraine seems like they'll inevitably be able to recapture the land at this rate, if the Russians really have such crappy intelligence that they wasted these missiles on such unimportant targets.
I don't think Ukraine acts like it's winning the war. Do winners desperately beg for support from NATO in a war they're winning? Do winners lose 20% of their territory to annexation?
USA won the Revolutionary War vs the British in 1776, while desperately asking / begging for aid from France. When the Soviets beat the Nazis on the Eastern front, they were also receiving gross amounts of aid / US Liberty ships to rebuild their stockpiles (from USA / Lend Lease program).
The question of winning vs losing can be determined by roughly the strength, and determination, of the armies involved. Indeed, weapon-shipments are an advantage in a war, not a disadvantage. Its pretty silly to suggest otherwise.
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The real measure of the strength of the armies can be seen in the front lines. Russia has a complete inability to do anything about HIMARS, and instead sends cruise missiles to Kyiv cause they're too stupid to find the HIMARS.
Around 100 cruise missiles, none of them hitting any of the 12 HIMARS that have caused them so much grief over the last 3 months.
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This annexation of Ukrainian territory will be remembered just as the Reichskommissariat Ukraine was remembered. A temporary setback that ultimately cost the German Army everything. The war doesn't end because some leader somewhere makes a declaration. The war ends when the armies both decide to stop fighting.
There's nothing that Russia has done here that encourages the Ukrainian Army to give up.
Do you think Russia will find a response to HIMARS in the next six months?
I mean, aside from the masses realizing that the only sane response is to get out of Ukraine and go back into Russia.
Russia has the capability to end this by simply ending the war. Ukraine on the other hand, has no response but to defend itself from the bully next door. It is obvious that only Ukraine's military is holding Russia back, and the illegal annexation only proves Russia's colonial aims here.
We just gotta wait until the Russians realize how pathetic their army is, and that there is no military solutions available to the Russians here. That will take time unfortunately, but that's what we have to wait for.
Honestly, I have no idea when and where this picture is from. And for the sake of argument let's say both sides use such tactics. However this does answer the question: "Why playgrounds and parks are targeted"
One definitely doesn't even have to be an expert in rhetorics to identify your weak manipulations.
2 of like 100 missiles that might have just as well been shot down by the AA system (which, surprise, also shoot missiles, that might hit the target, or...).
Yes, it seems to me you need at least some expertise or at least have some understanding of basic logic, or maybe at least a vague familiarity with the matter conservation law to ask yourself:
Where do missiles shot down by an AA system go?
Where do AA missiles, that didn't hit the target go?
The links that I posted are very much official. They are both projects of ukranian embassy in Prague. All the money will be used for direct weapons purchase.
The national bank was the very first and original option and is without doubt the most official and direct way to support Ukraine, be it military or humanitarian.
Report is that it struck 150m away. There seems no doubt it was Russian ordinance.
So arguably we saw the report about the building just because a foreign property is there. Presumably whatever the missile actually hit was obliterated.
2. Does this building have any other tenants besides Samsung?
It's not like Russian own-goals are unprecedented in this war, but I'm somewhat skeptical of the framing here, since it could very well be calculated to influence South Koreans.
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[ 5.4 ms ] story [ 207 ms ] threadThe food scene isn't incredible, but pretty good for Eastern Europe. Dacha restaurant is excellent. The city itself is beautiful with heavy French vibes, and of course from an European point of view it's filled with very conventionally attractive people.
(added later) For the context, I'm Russian. Right now, there's a refugee family from Mariupol (you know, that city in Donbass that got almost completely destroyed) living in one of my two flats. They lost all they had. They lived in a damp basement with nearly no food for a month and a half. They buried their neighbors personally, and also the school teacher of their kid. A marauder wannabe nearly shot them, and then his commander nearly did the same after they complained, for "lying about his soldiers". Their son lost a hand after a tank shell hit their home. If you're also in Russia, we can connect and you'll see them in person, to look the kid in the eye and tell him about the suffering of Donbass people.
Obviously yes. The whole Donbas war was started by FSB Colonel and bunch of irregular troops coming from russia. Russia's post-2014 strategy was to destroy Ukraine from inside, by prolonged conflict. This backfired, and Ukraine united instead of being divided, like before 2014 by russian agents like Medvedchuk or Yanukovych.
>destroying their own pipelines and bridges
Only relevant destruction of pipelines and bridges before 24.02 was done by retreating FSB led irregular russian troops in 2014.
Or are you talking about Ukraine attacking valid military targets as crimean bridge now? https://twitter.com/Flash_news_ua/status/1554869316935471105
>only to use it as an excuse to bomb infrastructure in the Ukraine?
They mostly bomb civilian infrastructure and dwellings, not military one because their intelligence and precision missles sucks.
>By that logic, I assume Russia will soon drop a nuclear bomb in Sankt Petersburg in order to have an excuse to continue their operation in the Ukraine.
They will need to do stuff like this only if they continue to lose, not with nuclear or so. Russia and especially Putin is known for targeting it's own citizen to cause war frenzy - that's how he got elected and caused war, by bombing Moscow. Google "ryazan sugar".
It's not Russia killing their own people. It's Russia killing some unlucky pawns, whether in staged attacks or by forcibly "mobilizing" all the men they find there and sending them into the meat grinder.
To me Russia seems on a mission to capture as much territory from Ukraine they can and punish and destroy everything they can't capture. To cross the borders, Russia NEEDED a pretext and in order to justify their further destruction they continue to need these pretexts and I think they manufacture them - killing civilians in DNR and LNR. Ukraine does not need pretexts to defend itself nor to recover its legal territories. And yes, I think Putin personally is capable of nuclear false flag if that would enable him to achieve his objectives in Ukraine. He already sacrificed thousands of troops and billions in materials for some lame territorial gains he's not even able to hold. Putin would easily nuke 50k of his men if that would guarantee him Ukraine and remaining in power.
It’s by far the least important thing in the circumstances of this tragedy and my heart goes out to those affected by the important aspects of this strike. But I am simultaneously mesmerised by the how unlikely it is that you get a sudden and dramatic draining of a volume of water this big this high off the ground, I mean if you demolished a building you would drain the pool first, if you think the building might collapse you’ll drain the pool to remove extra load on the structure well before anything goes wrong… it’s just so unlikely that a full pool would be drained like this.
I.e., did it hit a plausibly intended target, or miss?
https://www.amazonredshiftresearchproject.org/slblog/2022-10...
To my eye, the missile struck the roof of the low building next to the Samsung tower. The buildings there, as far as I know from looking at them, are light commerical - restaurants, shops, etc.
The accuracy of Russian munitions has been demonstrably lower than NATO standard [1]. They’re also running low on good munitions, leading e.g. to land strikes by surface-to-air S-300s [2].
[1] https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/exclusive...
[2] https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/britain-says-russia-has...
They're from a precious small stockpile of Russian precision weapons. And they wasted it on civilian targets.
S300 cannot strike Kyiv, not from where the the frontline has moved.
They did not miss.
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russias-defence-ministr...
>Russian defence ministry said in its daily briefing:
>"The goal of the strike has been achieved. All designated targets were hit,"
ergo this childrens playground was the intended target https://mobile.twitter.com/ArmanSoldin/status/15793548449511... https://twitter.com/mjluxmoore/status/1579357969577545729
45 out of 80 missiles shot down. I suspect they're not on a high alert right now away from the frontline, so that sounds like a good result. I wonder if I'm right or is the system mostly automated and "being ready" wouldn't make a difference.
If missiles flew too high for MANPADS, they'd be very easily shot down by proper SAMs or fighters, they survive by flying under the radar.
Sounds much like the V2 rocket program used by Hitler to punish the British for their continental bombing incursions; it was largely irrelevant militarily but very expensive.
That's why such an attack is stupid and barbaric. It changes nothing about the war and just manages to waste Russian money and kill innocent people.
If Russia's best response is really just attacking Universities and parks, it means that the Ukrainian army is invisible to Russia and Russia has no ability to strike the troops.
Russia seemingly just confirmed what we all were thinking, they have no ability to beat the Ukrainian army anymore, and have decided to simply attack civilians out of frustration.
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In contrast, the destruction of the Crimean bridge destroys one of two railroads that are supplying the Russian army in the south. Logistics for troop supplies are ruined.
The strategic implications are obvious, and Russia seemingly has no way to stop the Ukrainian southern counter-offensive... And now has roughly 1/2 of the military supplies moving forward.
Indeed, this is likely going to have the opposite effect. Ukrainians are going to ask NATO for even more weapons, such as anti-missile systems and better air defenses. Making the Ukrainian military even more powerful.
I really don't think that this terrorism of civilians is a good strategy at all. Everyone has accepted the fact that civilians are "soft targets" that are incredibly difficult (maybe impossible) to defend. We don't need a reminder from Russia for that fact.
All these attacks do is prove the depravity of the Russians. Not just of Putin, but also the military commanders who carried out and executed these attacks.
Russia is a net food exporter, but probably they do not grow all they need. Smuggling needed foreign tech, and laundering money, has to be expensive. Paying off internal supporters might be a bigger drain.
They do have thousands of missiles left, although mostly the older, smaller ones as far as anyone can tell, and it's not easy for them to replace any of them.
I'm guessing the whole thing is a show that any of those missiles might have had a nuclear bomb in, and Ukraine would have very little chance of shooting it down, since they wouldn't know which one to aim at.
I'd guess it's a negotiating tactic... The actual targets are mostly irrelevant.
>"There was no decision to transfer the plane anywhere. You could do Rzeszów, you could do Leipzig. Why Leipzig? Because on January 26th, there was an appeal to management from the [NATO Support and Procurement Agency] via [Antonov Logistics (Germany)] for the relocation of all our aircraft. Flight personnel, personnel, spare parts, etc [could be transported] to Leipzig in light of a possible war. There was no answer to this inquiry...And as I said, there was no strong-willed decision to transfer [the aircraft] between February 15th and 23rd.
https://www.kyivpost.com/russias-war/biden-zelensky-ignored-...
>U.S. President Joe Biden said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky ignored warnings that Russia would invade his country ahead of the February 24 aggression.
“I know a lot of people thought I was maybe exaggerating, but I knew, and we had data to sustain, he was going in off the border. There was no doubt. And Zelensky did not want to hear it, nor did a lot of people,” Biden said on Friday, June 10, during a political fundraiser in Los Angeles.
Yet Ukrainian military surely took it time to escalate the shelling of Donetsk and Lugansk in February, as seen from OSCE reports.
https://www.osce.org/files/2022-02-19%20Daily%20Report.pdf?i...
Obviously russians did it to create false sense of urgency in russian media.
Related: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gleiwitz_incident
And old-fashioned espionage.
So many questions…
You actually do need "ultra accurate precision IMUs" to not miss my several miles, if it can't be radar/infrared steered.
But more likely, the actually intended target was something nearby, and we hear about Samsung because we (are assumed to) have more interest in Samsung.
Or there's more propaganda/strategic value in portraying Samsung as being deliberately attacked. Samsung seems like it's a kind of "national champion," and maybe an attack against it will be felt somewhat like an attack against South Korea itself. Also they're a supplier of advanced electronics and electronic components, so turning the corporation against Russia would be valuable in disrupting Russian supply chains.
Also, for _some_ reason, russian women show the most bloodlust - just because they know they won't be drafted.
I don’t want to make it sound, and any way that I like these assholes, I mean Fuck Putin. These pricks are incapable of even understanding decent human behavior, and have spread so many lies that I’m pretty convinced they have lost grip on reality and truth.
That having been said, everything about this illegal Ukraine invasion is tainted with spy games and propaganda. Dead “civilians”? Targeting Samsung? Inaccurate weapons? I don’t buy any of it. When it comes to this conflict, it’s a matter of faith: do you think The Nations who stand against (that asshole) Putin are good and justified? If so, then just keep the faith and don’t trust what you read. The alternative is to subject yourself to a carnival ride of fake news and lies that will leave your head spinning.
"I don’t buy any of it. When it comes to this conflict, it’s a matter of faith: do you think The Nations who stand against (that asshole) Putin are good and justified? If so, then just keep the faith and don’t trust what you read. The alternative is to subject yourself to a carnival ride of fake news and lies that will leave your head spinning."
Old tactic from Goebbels, spread lies and facts evenly, so that no one believes ANY facts from any side anymore, people are effectively demoralised. You can see the effect of that tactics in vonwoodson's and many others' posts. Maybe we will have antidote for that after this war, but I doubt it.
If you want to directly donate to UA army you can donate here https://www.supportukraine.cz/en.html via bank transfer and here https://www.weaponstoukraine.com/ by credit card.
Civilian targets are easier to hit because it doesn't matter what you're firing at specifically as the goal isn't destruction of specific targets but spreading terror. Hitting a military outpost needs to be much more precise because hitting an open patch nearby will do nothing but hitting a plaza or park will still inflict terror by maiming nearby civilians.
I remember reading something about how it didn't weaken resolve in Japan specifically because people were already prepared to fight until the last man. Presumably Ukranians are also prepared to do the same.
As for this specific attack, I wonder if the goal is to get global companies to fear operating in Ukraine, resulting in the same effects as if they'd been sanctioned.
Blockade eliminating fuel imports had them ready to surrender already. The nukes were meant to scare Russia. But Russia already knew all about the nukes. So, in the end the nukes and the other civil firestorms were just war crimes. But the victor is not prosecuted.
Any citation? This is the first time I have heard this claim.
Good, because the claim is false. When the emperor decided to surrender, he faced a coup attempt. This was after two atomic bombs and the Russian invasion of Manchuria ("the twin shocks").
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ky%C5%ABj%C5%8D_incident
The emperor wanted to negotiate a surrender. They ended up with an "unconditional" surrender, but with an under the table promise to allow the emperor to keep his title.
Front line strikes have limited value where the line is long and troop concentrations are dispersed.
The Russians failed to strike RADAR, air-defenses, airplanes / fighters, drones, helicopters, or any other powerful (and expensive) targets. They were unable to strike M777 or HIMARS, or ammunition depos.
This means that the Russians do not have the intelligence, or capability, to strike at military targets. Or they're too stupid to understand proper SEAD operations or why the ammo-dumps are useful to blow up.
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Ukraine only has 120-ish M777 guns. Why didn't Russia just blow up all the M777 guns? Its not a big number. Or what about the 12 HIMARS launchers they're using? Its an incredibly small number of HIMARS.
Answer: Russia is incapable of doing so. They either don't have the intelligence to find them, or they are too well defended that Russia didn't think such strikes would be successful.
- Ukraine is a huge country and they are doing a good job defending their critical assets and don't forget they have best in class training and intelligence to help them just do that.
- Russia has destroyed many military targets during the conflicts. Obviously both sides lie about their casualties.
- Ukraine is backed by west and receives new supplies every day. Much more than publicized. The 12 HIMARS is not real. The actual figures are never shared, as it would be too foolish to give such information to the enemy.
Russia 100% does, or else, if they where actually hitting military targets with these missiles they would of won the war by now.
Russia uses these terror strikes on civilians as a method of waging war, an attempt to get the enemy to surrender.
It's an act of terror, and just one of many war crimes Russia commits weekly.
Russia is incapable of conducting proper military operations, its why they rely on their 20th century terror tactics. They haven't learnt that these tactics don't work all the time and can at times just embolden the populace against the enemy.
Google it. It wasn't the Russians.
"Ukrainian officials also reported that at least 95% of the city had been destroyed during the fighting, largely by Russian bombardments"
"The United Nations stated it had confirmed the deaths of 1,348 civilians, but said the true death toll was likely thousands higher, and added that 90% of the city's residential buildings had been damaged or destroyed"
That seems unlikely. We know that the Ukrainians are launching hundreds of HIMARS rockets, drones, M777 artillery strikes, and more. Those weapons are stored _somewhere_, and its intelligence's job to find them.
When an ammo-dump blows up, we know what it looks like. The Russians are incapable of hitting ammo dumps (or unwilling). Either way, it just means that the Ukrainian military will continue to use HIMARS / M777 artillery to push the front line further.
At a minimum, if these attacks were truly "successful", then the HIMARS / M777 attacks would stop. But... they won't. Its blatantly obvious that Ukraine wasn't hiding their HIMARS in an open playground in Kyiv.
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So while Russia continues to attack dog-parks and universities, Ukraine continues to attack training centers, command posts, ammo dumps, and supply routes.
The difference is palpable. Its clear who is winning the war.
I'm not sure if there's a real response to these Russian terror attacks unfortunately. But Ukraine seems like they'll inevitably be able to recapture the land at this rate, if the Russians really have such crappy intelligence that they wasted these missiles on such unimportant targets.
USA won the Revolutionary War vs the British in 1776, while desperately asking / begging for aid from France. When the Soviets beat the Nazis on the Eastern front, they were also receiving gross amounts of aid / US Liberty ships to rebuild their stockpiles (from USA / Lend Lease program).
The question of winning vs losing can be determined by roughly the strength, and determination, of the armies involved. Indeed, weapon-shipments are an advantage in a war, not a disadvantage. Its pretty silly to suggest otherwise.
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The real measure of the strength of the armies can be seen in the front lines. Russia has a complete inability to do anything about HIMARS, and instead sends cruise missiles to Kyiv cause they're too stupid to find the HIMARS.
Around 100 cruise missiles, none of them hitting any of the 12 HIMARS that have caused them so much grief over the last 3 months.
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This annexation of Ukrainian territory will be remembered just as the Reichskommissariat Ukraine was remembered. A temporary setback that ultimately cost the German Army everything. The war doesn't end because some leader somewhere makes a declaration. The war ends when the armies both decide to stop fighting.
There's nothing that Russia has done here that encourages the Ukrainian Army to give up.
I mean, aside from the masses realizing that the only sane response is to get out of Ukraine and go back into Russia.
Russia has the capability to end this by simply ending the war. Ukraine on the other hand, has no response but to defend itself from the bully next door. It is obvious that only Ukraine's military is holding Russia back, and the illegal annexation only proves Russia's colonial aims here.
We just gotta wait until the Russians realize how pathetic their army is, and that there is no military solutions available to the Russians here. That will take time unfortunately, but that's what we have to wait for.
No later than February 26, 2022
https://old.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/t1sm0n/howit...
> and where
Severodonetsk
> Honestly, I have no idea when and where this picture is from
If only someone made a search engine, which could search by an images...
2 of like 100 missiles that might have just as well been shot down by the AA system (which, surprise, also shoot missiles, that might hit the target, or...).
Yes, it seems to me you need at least some expertise or at least have some understanding of basic logic, or maybe at least a vague familiarity with the matter conservation law to ask yourself:
Where do missiles shot down by an AA system go?
Where do AA missiles, that didn't hit the target go?
Here are the official ones:
https://bank.gov.ua/en/about/support-the-armed-forces
https://bank.gov.ua/en/about/humanitarian-aid-to-ukraine
Again this is official project by the ukranian government (https://czechia.mfa.gov.ua/cs/news/sbirka-na-podporu-ukrajin..., https://mil.in.ua/en/news/in-the-czech-republic-approximatel...). Yes the national bank has now some other options and that is cool but that does not make this project in any way unofficial.
So arguably we saw the report about the building just because a foreign property is there. Presumably whatever the missile actually hit was obliterated.
https://asiatimes.com/2022/10/samsung-building-hit-in-russia...
The questions I have are:
1. Was this building the indented target?
2. Does this building have any other tenants besides Samsung?
It's not like Russian own-goals are unprecedented in this war, but I'm somewhat skeptical of the framing here, since it could very well be calculated to influence South Koreans.
https://nitter.net/tinso_ww/status/1579404942116519937#m
possibly even worse optics than hitting an office building.
It seems that Russian missiles can't hit anything - who is going to buy their overhyped moderns weapons unless they give it away at a discount???.
Turkey with their drones and France/Germany/US will be cleaning up former Russian clients.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lbxh8fRP5Us