Putin's Invasion of Ukraine

[Hydra009]

Syrskyi is out

Damn, now I gotta give the Blue Lantern Corps my address. Meh, it'll work out for the best.

Mykhailo Drapatyi is the new Commander-in-Chief (in Ukraine, the President and the Commander-in-Chief are two different people, unlike the US system)

No word yet about Fedorov, but I suspect he'll accept some sort of post shortly.

Most importantly, the Ukrainian government showed that it listens to its people and is willing to seriously consider their demands. This is what a healthy democracy looks like.

[Cassia]

Syrskyi is out

Damn, now I gotta give the Blue Lantern Corps my address. Meh, it'll work out for the best.

Mykhailo Drapatyi is the new Commander-in-Chief (in Ukraine, the President and the Commander-in-Chief are two different people, unlike the US system)

No word yet about Fedorov, but I suspect he'll accept some sort of post shortly.

Most importantly, the Ukrainian government showed that it listens to its people and is willing to seriously consider their demands. This is what a healthy democracy looks like.

Yes.
And this was something to see. Some new mil warehouse strikes.

[Hydra009]

Yes.
And this was something to see. Some new mil warehouse strikes.

Two new Wildberries warehouses on fire today. One in Krasnodar region and another in Nevinnomyssk (Stavropol region). Both in southern Russia, east of Crimea, in case anyone is curious on where the magic is happening.

Previously, two Wildberries locations near Moscow were attacked, one by Ukrainian drones and the other by Russian AA. Even though the Ukrainians only attacked three, technically, I think that counts as four so far.



Putin is downplaying this, but at minimum, it's thousands of workers out of work and several billion USD worth of damages. There may be other effects as panic sets in and Russian civilians are less likely to use major retailers/warehouses like they normally would and economic activity in Russia becomes a lot more dangerous and less worthwhile.

Wildberries’ annual turnover exceeds 4 trillion rubles, or roughly $30-35 billion. That accounts for more than 10% of all domestic trade in Russia.

Source

Having 4 of your largest facilities suddenly go up in smoke is going to put a serious dent into that 10% figure, which ultimately means less money for the Russian war effort.

There's been some discussion online that *only* 9% of Wildberries warehouses have been destroyed, if you count by square footage. The implication is that these strikes are ineffective since most Wildberries stores are just fine. But just a couple weeks ago, that figure was 100%. That sudden drop is still a big deal and these fires are only the beginning.

And to put it bluntly, this argument is kinda terrible because these logistics are vital, so any losses are keenly felt. Put it this way: ever see someone with 91% of a head? You don't say "oh, he's fine, he still has most of a head", right?

[Hydra009]

[Hydra009]

Germany held secret talks with Russia in Azerbaijan

Huh. Kinda strange that Ukraine wasn't at that table considering that it's about Ukraine, but apparently Azerbaijan was in the dark, too. Questionable tactics aside, let's see how it worked. They probably made some major breakthrough with Putin, got him to make some sort of big concession...

Putin drops territorial concessions, demands all of Donetsk Oblast

Russian President Vladimir Putin remains committed to seizing all of Donetsk Oblast by force, the sources said. Moscow also plans to retain occupied border areas of Ukraine's Sumy and Kharkiv oblasts as a buffer zone.

So now he not only wants eastern Ukraine, he wants northern Ukraine, too. :/

Wow, nice going. The minute the diplomats start talking payouts with this warmonger, he wants the moon. That's what "diplomacy" is to this guy - an opportunity to take and take and take some more.

I should note here that the old Soviet way of diplomacy was to start with ludicrously high demands then "compromise" down to what you want and a little more.

Putin abandoned any territorial concessions after the Kremlin interpreted increasingly tough U.S. rhetoric as a sign that informal understandings reportedly reached at the Alaska summit with U.S. President Donald Trump had collapsed, the sources said.

Lovers' quarrel. Mad at the ex, taking it out on the neighbor. But the neighbor isn't quite the pushover he thought.

Obviously, this isn't a genuine attempt at diplomacy now and it wasn't back then with Trump. Putin isn't interested in diplomacy. He wants to die a wartime dictator. So let him. Don't try to placate this guy, don't try to meet him halfway, don't try to give him an off-ramp, don't be a hero and hold out your hand when he inevitably hangs from a cliff. Just let him get go.

[Hydra009]

A lot of mysterious deaths of semi-important Russians lately. Not the biggest fish, but decently-sized fish.

The first one was some gruesome NSFL footage of a Russian engineer casually being stabbed to death on the street at night. Very professionally done. Not his first rodeo, I imagine.

Source

The volunteer unit "Budanov's Detachments" liquidated a Russian military engineer in Samara.

On July 15, Andrei Tisarev, head of the design department of PJSC "UDK Kuznetsov", was liquidated.

This enterprise produces engines for Russian strategic aviation (Tu-95MS, Tu-22M3) and Mi-26 helicopters.

Tisarev was a candidate of sciences and a developer of aircraft engines for the occupiers, facilitating missile strikes on the civilian population of Ukraine.

Another was a Russian war criminal nicknamed "Batman" who was in a position of power at a filtration camp in Donbas. Took a long nap in his car.

On the evening of July 20, in the temporarily occupied territory of the Zaporizhzhia region, agents of the volunteer unit "Budanov's Detachments" destroyed the Russian war criminal Roman Vnukov with the call sign "Batman". The villain was shot in his own car with a PM pistol with a silencer.

Vnukov was an officer of the 5th separate motorized rifle brigade of the 1st army corps of the "DPR" and a figurehead of the "Myrotvorets" base. Previously, he participated in the terrorist groups "Oplot" and "Shield of Donbas", carrying out "cleanups" and "filtration".

During the full-scale invasion, "Batman" engaged in the torture of civilians, the forced deportation of Ukrainians, and their exploitation in slave labor.

You'll note that both assassinations were by someone(s) in "Budanov's Detachments" in Russia and Russian-occupied Ukraine. Immediate murder professionals, no doubt.

And finally, a Russian commander was successfully droned near the frontline. That one's unrelated, but it's another great catch of a mid-sized fish.

[Cassia]

Budanov's squads are linked to the CIA-trained Unit 2245 from ten years ago in Crimea.

[Hydra009]

Budanov's squads are linked to the CIA-trained Unit 2245 from ten years ago in Crimea.

Interesting. I did not know that. Well, I'm glad the Ukrainians only learned the target assassination part and not the grandiose coup scheme part. I do not want to read about some Ukrainian plot failing because an agent left the plans in a hotel room or *gestures broadly at Cuba's Bay of Pigs* anything like that.

Ukraine's doing a good job at keeping the mission scope small - one bad guy, element of surprise, relatively uncomplicated methods, 100% dead, no witnesses or collateral damage, successful exfiltration. In, bang, out. A jogger knows more about what happened than the FSB. That's how it always should be.

[Hydra009]

"Just one more tank assault, trust me bro, it'll work this time" - some Russian general with the shakes

[Hydra009]

Ukraine strikes Wildberries again

Must be a day that ends in a Y. Seriously, we're up to 7 now. Two in St Petersburg were hit yesterday. Today was Yekaterinburg, which is 1,750 km from the border with Ukraine. Suffice it to say that any Russian economic activity on the european side of the Ural mountains is in serious jeopardy and Russian AA was already strained to breaking. I don't see any way that Russia can possibly adapt to this.

Putin's gameplan so far has just been to build more AA - their AA is already getting blasted faster than they can build them and his solution is just to keep on keeping on. His strategy clearly isn't working but he's unwilling to change anything. I think the only notable thing that Russia has done in response to these air attacks is to pull AA from important strategic bases in the Arctic, leaving them completely undefended.

That shows the level of desperation right now and things are only getting worse for Russia.