Ukraine cries. Everyone is lying. UN expresses 'deep concerns'

[pinhodecarlos]

Here on meetings when a native says a joke the foreigners are always the ones not laughing.

[Dr Sardonicus]

Originally Posted by LaurV

<snip>
Didn't I say "behind of official propaganda"? What would they say, if they bruised it themselves?

Oh, they'd blame the Ukrainians. But that bridge isn't just "bruised," it's broken. The attack is a major military setback for the Russians. For that reason I dismiss the notion of a Russian "false-flag operation" out of hand in this case. This isn't just blowing up a few apartment buildings full of civilians and blaming separatists, to justify waging war against civilians to crush a rebellion. My guess is, a "false flag" operation indicating an attack on the bridge would have ended not with an explosion, but a truck full of explosives being stopped just in time.

What Russian officialdom actually is saying indicates to me that they are trying desperately to tell their public that they actually have a clue about how the attack was carried out, but they really don't.

It seems the FSB released what they said was an X-ray of the bomb aboard a truck, and a photo of what they said was the truck in the X-ray.

However, those images showed a truck with four axles under the trailer - one under the front and 3 under the rear. And the truck in the CCTV pictures of the explosion had five axles under the trailer - two axles under the front of the trailer and three under the rear.

Uh, yes, well, you see, the bomb was taken off the truck in the X-ray picture, and loaded onto another truck - after it was in Russia!

[kriesel]

Reminds me of the old days, when they'd alter historical photographs to remove someone who'd fallen out of favor, but badly (incompletely), leaving a stray hand or leg on occasion.

[Dr Sardonicus]

Elon Musk's war on Ukraine is not going well.

His proposal to have Ukraine surrender to Russia, greeted with much applause from the Kremlin, was not well received in much of the rest of the known universe.

So, he went on the offensive, threatening to pull the plug on Ukraine's Starlink connections. It was, he said, simply too costly for him to maintain, so perhaps US taxpayers should pony up.

Now, he has had to retreat from that position, perhaps realizing that he does in fact have sufficient wealth to underwrite the venture without being reduced to penury. Or perhaps after once again feeling the extreme heat of widespread opprobrium.

[xilman]

Originally Posted by Dr Sardonicus

Now, he has had to retreat from that position, perhaps realizing that he does in fact have sufficient wealth to underwrite the venture without being reduced to penury. Or perhaps after once again feeling the extreme heat of widespread opprobrium.

That said, should running military operations be a private or a state activity? In what way is Musk different from other mercenaries such as the Wagner Group?

I'm asking the questions pro tem.; I may provide (some of) my answers at a later date.

[kriesel]

Originally Posted by Dr Sardonicus

Elon Musk's ...

His proposal to have Ukraine surrender to Russia, greeted with much applause from the Kremlin, was not well received in much of the rest of the known universe.

Hadn't seen that. Looks like Podoliak's response was much better supported.
https://news.yahoo.com/musk-recalls-...172820898.html

Russian SU-34 training flight results in 4 Russian civilians dead, 45 apartments damaged in Yeysk, Russia. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/...-in-yeysk-city
What a coincidence, that's very similar to what they've been doing to Ukraine after completing training.

[Dr Sardonicus]

Originally Posted by kriesel

<snipo>
Russian SU-34 training flight results in 4 Russian civilians dead, 45 apartments damaged in Yeysk, Russia. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/...-in-yeysk-city
<snip>

I wonder about the crew ejecting. I have a vague recollection from an episode of This Old House of a memorial plaque along the Charles River in Boston, honoring a military pilot who did not eject from his doomed plane, and died when the plane crashed. The consensus was, the pilot knew the plane was on course to crash into an apartment complex, and stayed at the controls in order to try to divert the plane from the buildings. He was successful, though at the cost of his own life. The plane crashed on open ground.

Ten non-combat crashes of Russian warplanes in seven months? Sounds like a lot to me...

[ldesnogu]

Originally Posted by Dr Sardonicus

Ten non-combat crashes of Russian warplanes in seven months? Sounds like a lot to me...

It seems to be typical of Russia: https://informnapalm.org/en/military...-infographics/

We'd need to know more about the 10 failures in the last months: technical issues or pilot errors? Oryx doesn't provide information about that. If many are due to technical failures, then perhaps we could hypothesize sanctions have an impact on plane maintenance (that's already the case for civil aviation).

[LaurV]

Originally Posted by kriesel

What a coincidence, that's very similar to what they've been doing to Ukraine after completing training.

Originally Posted by Dr Sardonicus

I wonder about the crew ejecting.

That is exactly the talk in the pro-Ukrainean YT channels which I follow, it is the "karma" in action... see Denys Davydov's last video (from 10/17). He also says that this type of plane has a crew of two, and that only one of them ejected. When asked later if he was hit, he (the pilot) said clearly "no".

[Dr Sardonicus]

In this POLITICO interview, Fiona Hill says

It's very clear that Elon Musk is transmitting a message for Putin. There was a conference in Aspen in late September when Musk offered a version of what was in his tweet - including the recognition of Crimea as Russian because it's been mostly Russian since the 1780s - and the suggestion that the Ukrainian regions of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia should be up for negotiation, because there should be guaranteed water supplies to Crimea. He made this suggestion before Putin's annexation of those two territories on September 30. It was a very specific reference. Kherson and Zaporizhzhia essentially control all the water supplies to Crimea. Crimea is a dry peninsula. It has aquifers, but it doesn't have rivers. It's dependent on water from the Dnipro River that flows through a canal from Kherson. It's unlikely Elon Musk knows about this himself. The reference to water is so specific that this clearly is a message from Putin.

[Dr Sardonicus]

Putin has declared martial law in Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk, and Zaporizhzhia, which he recently pretended to annex.

I consider this proof positive that things are going very badly from a military standpoint. Martial law gives him a pretext to wage war on his newly "adopted" civilian populace instead.

It brings this post to mind...