US Foreign Policy 3.0: We're The Mets of International Diplomacy

[Kepler]

Several sources commenting that Russia elected not to take the operational pause generally associated with gearing up for a new attack, to the point where units which failed in the Kyiv attack are being redeployed immediately into the Donetsk attack:

The Russian offensive in the east is unlikely to be dramatically more successful than previous Russian offensives, but Russian forces may be able to wear down Ukrainian defenders or achieve limited gains. Russian forces did not take the operational pause that was likely necessary to reconstitute and properly integrate damaged units withdrawn from northeastern Ukraine into operations in eastern Ukraine. As we have assessed previously, Russian forces withdrawn from around Kyiv and going back to fight in Donbas have, at best, been patched up and filled out with soldiers from other damaged units, and the Russian military has few, if any, cohesive units not previously deployed to Ukraine to funnel into new operations.[1] Frequent reports of disastrously low Russian morale and continuing logistics challenges indicate the effective combat power of Russian units in eastern Ukraine is a fraction of their on-paper strength in numbers of battalion tactical groups (BTGs). Russian forces may certainly be able to wear down Ukrainian positions in eastern Ukraine through the heavy concentration of firepower and sheer weight of numbers, but likely at a high cost. A sudden and dramatic Russian offensive success remains highly unlikely, however, and Ukrainian tactical losses would not spell the end of the campaign in eastern Ukraine, much less the war as a whole.

Assuming they even backfilled them to normal strength, it would be mostly from conscripts. Insofar as they have any officers to call on they are coming from occupational zones in the Caucuses.

Basically, it's a sh-tshow. One thing they do seem to be doing this time is establishing air superiority. I haven't seen many (any?) reports of Russian air assets being yoinked the way they were in the Kyiv and Kherson attacks.

 

[Kepler]

Do it.

 

[Kepler]

Uff da.

 

[Handyman]

Ugh I put the Di$ney thing in the wrong thread...

Anyways they are holding a special session to basically try and destroy them. I guess they are peeved Orland went for Biden 2-1...

 

[Kepler]

Germany does the easy part first.

Germany will stop importing oil from Russia by the end of this year, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said after a meeting with her Baltic counterparts Wednesday, Reuters reported.

...

"We will halve oil by the summer and will be at zero by the end of the year, and then gas will follow, in a joint European roadmap, because our joint exit, the complete exit of the European Union, is our common strength," she added.

This is like swearing off bar... pretzels. Gas imports are the real killer. But they are indicating a complete phase out from all Russian energy sources by 2030.

 

[bronconick]

French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen calls out President Macron for hosting Putin in Versailles in 2017. Macron, via translator: “I hosted a head of state, not my banker.”

Zing.

 

[walrus]

Germany does the easy part first.



This is like swearing off bar... pretzels. Gas imports are the real killer. But they are indicating a complete phase out from all Russian energy sources by 2030.

People in Germany still have to heat their homes, I assume they can't/don't produce their own so it has to come from somewhere. That can't change overnight and I doubt it can change in 8 years but hopefully it can.

 

[Kepler]

Um.

Six people died and 27 more sustained injuries after a fire broke at a defense research facility in the northwestern Russian city of Tver on Thursday, authorities of the Tver regions said.

The fire erupted in an administrative building of the Aerospace Defense Forces’ Central Research Institute, which operates under the Russian Defense Ministry. It quickly engulfed the building’s upper three floors, forcing those inside to jump from windows and causing the roof to cave in.

Regional military prosecutors are investigating the cause of the blaze. The state-run news agency Tass said early findings pointed to aging wiring as a contributing factor.

According to the website of the Russian Defense Ministry, the institute focuses on research related to air and space defense, including the development of new anti-aircraft systems.

 

[Kepler]

The tip of the iceberg.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Satellite images released Thursday showed what appeared to be mass graves near Mariupol, and local officials accused Russia of burying up to 9,000 Ukrainian civilians there in an effort to conceal the slaughter taking place in the siege of the port city.

The images emerged hours after Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed victory in the battle for the Mariupol, despite the presence of an estimated 2,000 Ukrainian fighters who were still holed up at a giant steel mill. Putin ordered his troops not to storm the stronghold but to seal it off “so that not even a fly comes through.”

Satellite image provider Maxar Technologies released the photos, which it said showed more than 200 mass graves in a town where Ukrainian officials say the Russians have been burying Mariupol residents killed in the fighting. The imagery showed long rows of graves stretching away from an existing cemetery in the town of Manhush, outside Mariupol.

Mariupol Mayor Vadym Boychenko accused the Russians of “hiding their military crimes” by taking the bodies of civilians from the city and burying them in Manhush.

 

[Kepler]

Fun times in Moscow:

A former Kremlin official and Gazprombank vice-president has been found dead in his elite $3.5 million Moscow apartment by his 26-year-old daughter, police have reported. Alongside the body of multi-millionaire Vladislav Avayev, 51, was his ‘pregnant’ wife Yelena, 47, and younger daughter Maria, 13.

Investigators are keeping an open mind on the 14th floor massacre, carried out “with Avayev’s pistol”, and investigating any links to his work and personal life. The bodies - all found with gunshot wounds - were discovered by the couple’s distraught adult daughter Anastasia, when she entered the apartment after failing to get hold of her family. She told officers that the gun was in her father’s hand when she found his body, say reports.

Avayev previously worked as a high-flying executive at Gazprombank, a key part of Vladimir Putin’s gas-for-roubles scheme to hit back at Western sanctions. He had left the bank as vice-president but it was unclear if he retained connections to it. Earlier he had been deputy head of a major department in Putin’s Kremlin administration.

 

[Kepler]

Oh boy. A different one.

Mystery surrounds reports of the death of a Russian gas oligarch and his family inside their Spanish mansion.

Investigators are reportedly trying to figure out whether the incident was a domestic murder-suicide or an organized hit. Their bodies were discovered just one day after another Russian gas boss was found dead in similar circumstances alongside his family in Moscow.

Spanish news website El Punt Avui reported the bodies of Sergey Protosenya, 55, his wife and his daughter were found at around 4 p.m. on Tuesday, April 19 at their home in the seaside resort of Lloret de Mar in Spain's Catalonia region.

The alarm was raised by the couple's eldest son, who lives in France, when he was unable to reach them, it said. The website reported the mother and daughter were stabbed to death, while Sergey Protosenya had apparently hanged himself. Other news sites said Protosenya's wife Natalya was 53, and their daughter, Maria, had just turned 18.

 

[Kepler]

Wow.

(Click to embiggen.)

 

[mookie1995]

Wow.

(Click to embiggen.)

this really confuses mookie

 

[Kepler]

Russian plan is now to expand the southern occupation into a land bridge to Trans Dniestria (in the heart of Moldova). Moldova is in neither the EU nor the NATO.

 

[FadeToBlack&Gold]

Yeah, and Transnistria is a Moldovan breakaway state that is ethnically majority Russian. They have a weird love affair with Soviet times to the point of still using the hammer and sickle in their flag and political imagery.

 

[Handyman]

Russian plan is now to expand the southern occupation into a land bridge to Trans Dniestria (in the heart of Moldova). Moldova is in neither the EU nor the NATO.

https://twitter.com/sandumaiamd/stat...45008923705344

Today #Moldova submitted the 1st questionnaire for #EU membership to EU Ambassador @JanisMazeiks as we take a step closer to our accession bid to the EU. We are ready to do our part swiftly and diligently to give Moldova a chance for a better, safer & more prosperous future.

President of Moldova tweeted that this morning.

 

[RaceBoarder]

Yeah, and Transnistria is a Moldovan breakaway state that is ethnically majority Russian. They have a weird love affair with Soviet times to the point of still using the hammer and sickle in their flag and political imagery.

This was noted in a video early on from Wendover or PolyMatters. I have to think that Moldova will be split as things progress here, especially if the government pursues the NATO/EU route. Russia clearly wants to bring back the Iron Curtain after all this is said and done. And I see that as the endgame here, as NATO will allow new members, but do their damnedest to make sure WW-III doesn't break out.

 

[Kepler]

This story has been starting to bleed out of the "front line" war press. Have not seen one of the big outlets verify it yet.

The Ukrainian Armed Forces have destroyed a command operations center of the Russian Armed Forces 49th Combined Arms Army, eliminating two enemy generals.

According to a staff reporter, the Ukrainian Defense Ministry's Main Intelligence Directorate published the relevant statement on Facebook.

"On April 22, 2022, the Armed Forces of Ukraine delivered a devastating blow to the Russian occupation forces' 49th Combined Arms Army's forward command operations center, which was located a short distance from the combat line in Kherson Region, defying combat orders and common sense," according to the report.

As a result, the command operations center was destroyed, two Russian generals were eliminated, and another enemy general was critically injured and evacuated. Personal information has yet to be disclosed.

The 49th Combined is important enough to rate a Wikipedia page.

 

[bronconick]

Macron kicks the snot out of LaPen, 58.8-41.2. Odd what elections are like when you don't give a bunch of rural bumpkins the Electoral College.

 

[Kepler]

Macron kicks the snot out of LaPen, 58.8-41.2. Odd what elections are like when you don't give a bunch of rural bumpkins the Electoral College.

Some people here will tell us we have to keep the EC so they can continue to control our politics. Can't let you know who in the cities have an equal vote.

It has amazed me for 40 years that flyover liberals buy that crap. They are saying they would rather have their 19th century braindead gun-humper Jesus-smoking neighbors decide a modern nuclear nation's future than a fair and equal election with everybody having the same vote. Why? They more than anyone should know how stupid their conservative neighbors are.