Ukraine Watch...

[Vortex2]

The US is now sending "a small quantity" of ATACMS long range missiles to Ukraine.

This will improve our safety.

[Default0ptions]

UE said: “ I just find it surprising that UK supplied weapons, training, intelligence, sanctions etc - which have directly cost Russia many thousands of lives, many hundreds units of heavy equipment and billions of dollars, have elicited little more that 'stern warnings' from Moscow? How come?”

Well I very much doubt the statistics you’re quoting reflect much more than the propagandist stance of your sources, but here’s the obvious answer:

Perhaps because the Russians realise that a full scale nuclear exchange means game over for all of us and don’t yet consider it provocation enough to initiate that?

Besides; they’re winning quite comfortably in their stated objectives in Ukraine and can afford to wait us out.

Lots of news in the last days of western Zelenskyy fatigue. He’s going to be gone and the whole farce abandoned in short order by the west

“ Is the world running out of patience with Zelensky's 'blank cheque' demands? Poland stops giving arms and US gives a fraction of what Ukraine's leader asked for”

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... pport.html

“ The Coming Ukraine Collapse & The "Rebuilding" Headfake”

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/ ... g-headfake

[Ralphw2]

The US is now sending "a small quantity" of ATACMS long range missiles to Ukraine.

This will improve our safety.

The missiles will have cluster bomb warheads. They will be useful against troop concentrations , airfields , Sam systems and ammo dumps, but of little use against bridges, bunkers or railways. The US is only very slowly ratcheting up the weapon supply, They really do not want to give Ukraine any weapon not absolutely essential to restore its territorial integrity.

[Default0ptions]

The US is now sending "a small quantity" of ATACMS long range missiles to Ukraine.

This will improve our safety.

The missiles will have cluster bomb warheads. They will be useful against troop concentrations , airfields , Sam systems and ammo dumps, but of little use against bridges, bunkers or railways. The US is only very slowly ratcheting up the weapon supply, They really do not want to give Ukraine any weapon not absolutely essential to restore its territorial integrity.

Oh great so the Ukrainians are going to be sowing the land of the territory they want to regain with cluster bombs to maim and kill their own citizens with the unexploded munitions?

That’s a war crime isn’t it?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convent ... _Munitions

Or only when the BBC accuse the Russians of using them?

“Russia has been accused of using cluster bombs in Ukraine - and the International Criminal Court (ICC) has opened an investigation into possible war crimes”

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/60591017

It’s also quite touching that you think “They really do not want to give Ukraine any weapon not absolutely essential to restore its territorial integrity.”

Not going to happen

[Ralphw2]

I would point out that Russia has been using cluster munitions since day one of the invasion.

I do not know what I think about the morality of the weapons, they are banned because their dud rate make them more lethal to post war civilians than the enemy. The government of Ukraine will have to answer to their people about their use, if they survive as a government, but if Ukraine loses the Russians will not care how many more innocent Ukrainians die from the bombs they used.

[Default0ptions]

if Ukraine loses the Russians will not care how many more innocent Ukrainians die from the bombs they used.

A significant number of Ukrainians are ethnic Russians with family on both sides of the border and the number is significantly higher in the Russian controlled territory.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainians_in_Russia

“ The Russian census identified that there were more than 5,864,000 Ukrainians living in Russia in 2015, representing over 4.01% of the total population of the Russian Federation and comprising the eighth-largest ethnic group. On 2022 February there were roughly 2.8 million Ukrainians who fled to Russia ”

So if course the Russians care.

They went into the Donbas etc in response to eight years of Ukrainian shelling their own civilians

“ Ground-launched weapons, such as shelling, mortars, rockets, or grenades, for example, have accounted for 2,459 civilian casualties since 2014 – 91% of total civilian casualties.

Of the civilian casualties, the vast majority occurred in 2014 and 2015, with 1,428 and 862 civilian deaths and injuries in these years respectively. ”

[Ralphw2]

After 8 years of shelling of Ukrainians of all ethnicities by the Russian funded, armed and many Russian by nationality separatists in the Donbas.

And no, the Russian elite do not care about the lives of civilians or their own soldiers in this or any conflict, or they would not use the tactics they employ.

[Default0ptions]

“ And no, the Russian elite do not care about the lives of civilians or their own soldiers in this or any conflict, or they would not use the tactics they employ.”

Do you have a source for that or is it just what you think? Some telepathic link to the inner thoughts of “the Russian elite” perhaps?

I’m pretty careful to back up my statements with links to reputable sources

For example hysterical news about Russian attack killed 5 people

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/tw ... 023-08-28/

Russia just ain’t up to NATO standards in slaughtering the innocent yet

[clv101]

And no, the Russian elite do not care about the lives of civilians or their own soldiers in this or any conflict, or they would not use the tactics they employ.

I expect that's true, I also expect it's true for most wars through the ages. Civilians rank pretty low down the priority list of military decisions making.

[Default0ptions]

More hysteria about the low civilian casualty rate:

“Russian missiles and drones that targeted dozens of Ukrainian cities and towns overnight killed five people in the southern Ukrainian city of Mykolayiv”

https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-launches ... 80219.html

The Russians are really not very good at killing civilians. Still, keep up the hysteria. Even a broken clock is right twice a day

[Default0ptions]

And no, the Russian elite do not care about the lives of civilians or their own soldiers in this or any conflict, or they would not use the tactics they employ.

I expect that's true, I also expect it's true for most wars through the ages. Civilians rank pretty low down the priority list of military decisions making.

Yeah, Dresden, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Falluja . . .

[Default0ptions]

After 8 years of shelling of Ukrainians of all ethnicities by the Russian funded, armed and many Russian by nationality separatists in the Donbas.

For goodness sake Ralph, my link was about the Ukraine shooting INTO the Donbas and your comment is about the separatists shooting OUT of the Donbas at those who were shelling them.

Some statistics on civilian casualties in Ukraine

“Conflict-related civilian casualties in Ukraine”

https://ukraine.un.org/en/168060-confli ... es-ukraine

This rises somewhat from the date of the Russian invasion but is still incredibly low compared to those in NATO / US wars

https://ukraine.un.org/sites/default/fi ... %20ENG.pdf

Compare that with:

‘Staggering’ civilian death toll in Iraq – UN report

“No one knows with certainty how many people have been killed and wounded in Iraq since the 2003 United States invasion. However, we know that between 280,771-315,190 have died from direct war related violence caused by the U.S”

https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/cos ... ians/iraqi

[Vortex2]

I would point out that Russia has been using cluster munitions since day one of the invasion.

I do not know what I think about the morality of the weapons, they are banned because their dud rate make them more lethal to post war civilians than the enemy. The government of Ukraine will have to answer to their people about their use, if they survive as a government, but if Ukraine loses the Russians will not care how many more innocent Ukrainians die from the bombs they used.

Ukraine has been dropping tiny anti-personnel mines over civilian areas for ages.

No fuss about that in the Western media.

Both sides have being firing Grads missiles for years ... many of these have cluster-like warheads.

[Ralphw2]

Reports of an “unprecedented” buildup of Serbian troops on the Kosovo border. I suspect Serbia has seen the events in Azerbaijan and decided that NATO may be too distracted to start a hot war if they just waltzed over and annexed the country. Putin will be backing them all the way. The next few days could get very messy.

[johnny]

And no, the Russian elite do not care about the lives of civilians or their own soldiers in this or any conflict, or they would not use the tactics they employ.

I expect that's true, I also expect it's true for most wars through the ages. Civilians rank pretty low down the priority list of military decisions making.

Yeah, Dresden, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Falluja . . .

Yeah, but those examples come from a truly modern military power. And Falluja is to small to count on this list. Substitute in maybe the firebombing of Toyko?

Now...about those Boer concentration camps! How about the partitioning of India?

While the precise number of deaths is sensitive to the assumptions we make about baseline mortality, it is clear that somewhere in the vicinity of 100 million people died prematurely at the height of British colonialism. This is among the largest policy-induced mortality crises in human history

Link

No wonder a century earlier all the exceptional people fled to the land of exceptional to get away from all those Old World bad actors!