sure, to achieve that they have to first take nicholaev then odessa. this is not something that can be achieved in the short-term. the only viable option i see is to liquidate the donbass saliet first, then decide where to go from there with the forces that are freed up. perhaps by that time they can be moved to the west and encircle both cities from the north, then negotiate a settlement with kyiv. that will mean giving up taking kharkov.
Ukrainian War Developments
- Thread starter james smith esq
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The next one... Latvia.
A Latvian gas operator says the procedure doesn’t breach Western sanctions
Latvia’s main gas operator says it won’t rule out paying for Russian natural gas in rubles, revealing that the new settlement method announced by Moscow is being evaluated from a legal and business perspective.
“According to the first impression, the settlement procedure in Russian rubles does not formally violate the sanctions regime and is possible,” Latvijas Gaze said in a statement.
Earlier, Aigars Kalvitis, the board chairman of Latvijas Gaze, which is partially owned by Russia’s Gazprom, said the company couldn’t pay for natural gas supplies from Russia in rubles, since the current contract stipulates that all transactions must be made in euro.
Last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the government to take necessary steps to switch all payments for gas sales involving “hostile” countries to Russian currency from April 1. According to the Kremlin, the change concerns nations that imposed sanctions against Russia with the intention of damaging the country’s economy, which includes most EU member states.
Putin warned EU countries that they would need to set up ruble accounts to pay for Russian gas, saying that existing contracts would be halted if the payments were not made.
On Saturday, the head of Latvia’s natural gas storage operator Conexus Baltic Grid said that all the Baltic states – Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania – were no longer importing Russian natural gas.
I hope there will be another but well planned thrust towards Kiev again
Doubt it. After Donbass is secured, next target is probably going to be Odessa
plawolf
Lieutenant General
If the Russians have any sense, they will adjust their strategy to fight Ukraine to the last Ukrainian just like how NATO wants.
Only instead of getting bogged down in city fighting like Mariupol, they will take a leaf out of the PLA playbook and surround the cities to attack the reinforcements.
Cut off major cities one at a time and allow humanitarian corridors only to Russian controlled territory (so more escape via ambulance for Ukrainian troops) and wait for either relief forces to try to break in or defenders trying to break out and destroy them out in the open.
If the city starves and anyone complains, offer to allow them to send in humanitarian monitors to arrange for civilians to use the humanitarian corridors to exit the siege (but insist that they leave people embedded in the Russian lines to ‘better co-ordinate’ the evacuation and film it all live so even the western MSM cannot effectively spin it when the Ukrainian troops prevent civilians from leaving and/or start shelling the Russian positions to force the corridors to close so they can keep their human shields on the city).
Reince and repeat till they are at the Polish boarder.
Only instead of getting bogged down in city fighting like Mariupol, they will take a leaf out of the PLA playbook and surround the cities to attack the reinforcements.
Cut off major cities one at a time and allow humanitarian corridors only to Russian controlled territory (so more escape via ambulance for Ukrainian troops) and wait for either relief forces to try to break in or defenders trying to break out and destroy them out in the open.
If the city starves and anyone complains, offer to allow them to send in humanitarian monitors to arrange for civilians to use the humanitarian corridors to exit the siege (but insist that they leave people embedded in the Russian lines to ‘better co-ordinate’ the evacuation and film it all live so even the western MSM cannot effectively spin it when the Ukrainian troops prevent civilians from leaving and/or start shelling the Russian positions to force the corridors to close so they can keep their human shields on the city).
Reince and repeat till they are at the Polish boarder.
Bucha/Irpin region is a large area and most of the supposed killings happened near the border with Hostomel; what likely happened is some sort of confrontation between Russian Forces and locals snowballed into confrontation which lead to mass-killing within a local area; I wouldn’t say that the Russian military or any authoritative body within the region ordered the execution of civilians, rather it most likely started off as an accident or localized event by nervous and or tense Russian soldiers; which are mainly minimally trained conscripts.
This has been observed before by American forces in Vietnam; such with the My Lai massacres by poorly trained and anxious conscripts.
That said there is also the possibility of Russian soldiers and or local regiments denying the Ukrainians potential man power that would otherwise not cooperate with Russian Forces in the region; it could be said that they could have been actively contesting Russian Forces in the area; although that possibility is also slim.
Bodies found in different regions would seem to support this fact of it being a bunch of isolated interconnected events, and it is possible like you said that they were simply moving already dead bodies into mass graves; however it remains that there are a-lot of unanswered questions from the Russian withdrawal from the greater Kyiv Oblast however it can be said that based on provided evidence that both sides are guilty of committing war crimes and are actively attempting to blame one another for committing them; since wars are partially won psychologically.
Because very few state or people has ever had the wisdom and self awareness of own predilections and temperament to perceive that further increase in its own power and influence in the short run might actually be a very bad thing even for itself, much less the rest of the humanity, in the long run.
And to be realistic, every power and people pay obscene amount of lip service to humanity, but very few of them would lift a finger to improve welfare of the rest of humanity if in the process it does not see opportunity to aggrandize itself.
The problem with this theory is it assumed NATO will risk nuclear WW3 by intervening against Russia.
I did not see any indication that NATO was willing to risk nuclear WW3 by getting involved in Ukraine, and Putin likely had the same assessment, which is why he invaded knowing NATO won't get involved.
Biden only reinforced 5K troops to Poland/Baltics, far insufficient to intervene against 200K Russian troops. Biden repeated dismissed notion of US troops in Ukraine, only promising to defend 'every inch of NATO territory' only, not Ukraine. Russia intelligence agency likely agreed that NATO involvement was minimal likelihood, hence invasion went forward.
Yeah, that does not explain the bodies looked like they were killed recently instead of being four days old. Doesn't explain why it took Ukrainians such long time to report about this. While usually they flood twitter, the very instant something happens.
This is likely either result of the shelling by Ukrainians when the Russian where already out of there or and executions by Ukrainians of Pro-Russian Ukrainians. Would also explain the ribbons.
Would also go with Ukrainian modus operandi. As they have executed civilians and also used them as human shields.
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