Russian Invasion of Ukraine

FadeToBlack&Gold said:

They will ramp up the drone incursions and IT attacks to keep NATO busy.

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Two oil tankers said to be part of Russia’s “shadow fleet” that were set ablaze off Turkey’s Black Sea coast may have been hit by mines, drones or missiles, a senior Turkish official said Saturday. Tankers Kairos and Virat were struck in quick succession late Friday afternoon, prompting rescue operations. Crew members on board both vessels were reported to be safe. Turkish Transport and Infrastructure Minister Abdulkadir Uraloglu said rescue services first received reports that the Kairos may have hit a mine before being told of an explosion on the Virat.

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The OpenSanctions database, which tracks people or organizations involved in sanctions evasion, describes the vessels as part of a shadow fleet of ships used to evade sanctions imposed on Russia following its 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Ukraine has carried out successful naval strikes against Russian shipping during the war, particularly using explosives-packed marine drones. However, Ukrainian missions have largely been limited to the waters of the northern Black Sea. The Gambian-flagged Kairos caught fire in the Black Sea approximately 28 nautical miles (52 kilometers) off the coast of Turkey’s Kocaeli province, Turkey’s Directorate General of Maritime Affairs said. It was sailing empty toward Russia’s Novorossiysk port. Within an hour, the maritime authority reported that a second tanker, Virat, was “struck” while sailing in the Black Sea about 35 nautical miles (64 kilometers) off the Turkish coast. It did not provide further details.

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Russia has accused EU leaders of "pushing illegal moves against Russia’s reserves" following the deal with Ukraine. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenksy had urged EU leaders to use €200bn (£185bn) of frozen Russian assets to fund the loan. But Belgium, where the bulk of the assets are held, demanded guarantees that it would be protected against any possible Russian retaliation which proved too much for some EU countries to accept.

"The whole world just watched you fail to bully others into breaking the law," Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev says in a post on X, singling out British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz. Dmitriev calls the deal is a "major blow to EU warmongers" and adds "law and sanity win… for now".

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walrus said:

Ukraine drone hit russian shadow tanker in Mediterranean sea with a drone. 1200 miles away from Ukraine.

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• Russian forces are conducting a new cognitive warfare campaign through limited cross-border attacks across a broad part of the previously dormant northern frontline in Sumy and Kharkiv oblasts.
• These two cross-border attacks likely intend to advance the Kremlin’s cognitive warfare campaign to convince the West that the frontlines in Ukraine are collapsing, such that Ukraine should concede to all of Russia’s demands.

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Hart charges some American university administrators with systematically appeasing the Nazis. He quotes the historical work of Stephen Norwood, who documented the curtailment of academic freedom on American university campuses. For example, faculty was allowed to speak freely only on their areas of expertise. Faculty could be fired for commenting on anything beyond their immediate field. Students, who were presumed to have no scholarly expertise, had even less free-speech freedoms.

There were administrators, like Columbia University president Nicholas Murray Butler. He is known for his efforts to limit the number of Jewish students at Columbia by imposing discriminatory admission forms that included questions about religious affiliation, father’s place of birth and any family name changes. Butler was involved in the dismissal of a Jewish anti-Nazi faculty member and a student who led a protest against Nazi book burning.

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This week the war crossed an important threshold: 1,418 days. it has now lasted longer than the Great Patriotic War, the period of the World War II as it is remembered in Russia.

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The Kremlin's own classified assessments estimate that 1,315,000 Russian soldiers have been killed and wounded on the battlefield since the start of Russia's full-scale of Ukraine in February 2022, President Volodymyr Zelensky said on March 10, citing Ukrainian intelligence reports.

Zelensky, who made the comments following a meeting with Oleh Ivashchenko, the new head of military intelligence (HUR), said on social media that the estimate of Russian losses comes from documents obtained by Ukraine's intelligence networks

"We have reason to believe that these figures are understated," Zelensky added.

The Kyiv Independent cannot independently verify the intelligence reports.

The latest reports fall relatively in line with estimates made by Ukraine's General Staff, which, as of March 10, says that Russia has lost around 1,274,990 troops in Ukraine. The figures do not specify killed or wounded, though the overall consensus is that it includes dead, wounded, missing, and captured.

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Kepler said:

1.3 million.



To put that in perspective, Russia has 7.2 million men within the 18–30 age draft range. They have lost 18% of their entire potential force, and that's not even accounting for what percentage are able bodied. Only 25% of American males of that age are considered fit and capable of serving, although Russian combat standards are much, much lower.

Russia has 1.5 million active duty troops. 40% of American males were rejected for service in WW2 -- let's take that as Russia's standard:

(In millions)
7.2 males in age range
4.2 fit for service
2.7 after current deployments
1.4 after casualties

So Russia has 1.4 million men left to draw from to replenish a military losing 1.3 million every 4 years. Ahem.

(Numbers for Ukraine are probably just as bad if not worse.)

Also note that the Russian population was already shrinking and the deaths among the casualties are in prime crotchfruit cannon age. So this is going to carve a huge hole in their demographic pyramid.

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Russell Jaslow said:

This is why after WWII, Russia had one of, it not the, largest female-to-male marrying age ratios in the world for many, many decades. Their tactics, as you know, is to throw human waves at their enemies. Women there will once again find it hard to find suitable husbands for a long time.

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