Ukraine Watch...

[Ralphw2]

Russia seems determined to blame Ukraine regardless of the evidence. IS has posted a video supposedly showing the attackers talking about their plans, but with faces obscured. Russia claims to have captured all 4 attackers. There are reports of online of videos showing the suspects being tortured. Any confession under torture is of very little value as evidence.

[Ralphw2]

Ukraine today struck Sevastopol and claims to have damaged the main naval communications base there, and sunk two more landing craft. It is estimated that drone strikes have reduced Russias refinery capacity by one million barrels per day in recent weeks.

It is clear that Russia is hitting more targets in Ukraine recently, as the missile imbalance increases. The recent release of EU funds for buying non EU shells to send to Ukraine is hoped to 8pm rove the artillery imbalance soon.

[northernmonkey]

Russia seems determined to blame Ukraine regardless of the evidence. IS has posted a video supposedly showing the attackers talking about their plans, but with faces obscured. Russia claims to have captured all 4 attackers. There are reports of online of videos showing the suspects being tortured. Any confession under torture is of very little value as evidence.

Meanwhile, do you have any evidence to support your assertion that the Russian PM has stated that the families of the perpetrators face "retribution" for their crimes? This is now the second time of asking.

Did you just make that up?

[northernmonkey]

Russia seems determined to blame Ukraine regardless of the evidence. IS has posted a video supposedly showing the attackers talking about their plans, but with faces obscured. Russia claims to have captured all 4 attackers. There are reports of online of videos showing the suspects being tortured. Any confession under torture is of very little value as evidence.

Would you care to provide a link to these videos? Or, even, just the reports? Or, are you making that up as well?

Not that I'd blame the Russian's for doing whatever it takes to get whatever information these murderous scum are holding in their heads. Do you suppose the CIA would treat them according to the rules of the Geneva convention?

Anyway... back to those videos....

[Ralphw2]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=moEVXr_X-mI

This guy is fairly even handed and has been reporting on the war from the start. Obviously he pro Ukrainian but is not above calling out Ukraine when then overstep the rules of war. (Remembering the rules were only written after WW2).

[adam2]

Russia seems determined to blame Ukraine regardless of the evidence. IS has posted a video supposedly showing the attackers talking about their plans, but with faces obscured. Russia claims to have captured all 4 attackers. There are reports of online of videos showing the suspects being tortured. Any confession under torture is of very little value as evidence.

Would you care to provide a link to these videos? Or, even, just the reports? Or, are you making that up as well?

Not that I'd blame the Russian's for doing whatever it takes to get whatever information these murderous scum are holding in their heads. Do you suppose the CIA would treat them according to the rules of the Geneva convention?

Anyway... back to those videos....

Enemy soldiers IN UNIFORM have certain rights under the Geneva Convention. Spies and saboteurs have no such protection and may be executed or shot out of hand.

[northernmonkey]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=moEVXr_X-mI

This guy is fairly even handed and has been reporting on the war from the start. Obviously he pro Ukrainian but is not above calling out Ukraine when then overstep the rules of war. (Remembering the rules were only written after WW2).

So, someone on the internet who, by your own admission, is pro Ukrainian, says he has seen videos of the perpetrators being tortured. But provides no evidence of links to said videos.

Meanwhile, on youtube, there is a sudden simultaneous uptick of videos asserting Russians torturing Ukrainians. But, again, all evidence free.

I really don't know if you are just incredibly gullible or you know this is nonsense.

Meanwhile, here are some thing we do know:

1) A murderous attack on the softest of soft targets, civilians out for a night of entertainment, has been carried out in the heart of Moscow leaving well over a hundred dead and a similar number maimed.

2) Right on cue, a hitherto defunct terrorist group called ISIS makes claim to this deed.

3) There is a plethora of evidence, on record, that the Obama administration funded ISIS on a variety of fronts, not least in Syria, where it finally met its end as a coherent force at the hands of the Russians at Syria's request and in the context of a significantly less enthusiastically warmongering loony in the Whitehouse in the form of Donald Trump.

But, of course, there's nothing to see here is there.

[Ralphw2]

I have not seen an uptick in reports of Russians torturing Ukrainians. We are all just some guy on the internet. The closest I have ever got to Ukraine was the Polish border about 20 years ago.

We all have to chose which sources to believe about events outside our direct experience. I have travelled in Europe, India, and visited the US and Gabon in Africa. I have met people fromany countries, mostly scientists and engineers.

We all have to judge from the evidence and our personal experience. I judge that Putin is leading a brutal and immoral war against Ukraine, and has rebuilt the Russian state towards the level of brutality not seen since Stalin's time.

You have the right to disagree. As long as you don't live in Russia.

[northernmonkey]

I have not seen an uptick in reports of Russians torturing Ukrainians. We are all just some guy on the internet. The closest I have ever got to Ukraine was the Polish border about 20 years ago.

We all have to chose which sources to believe about events outside our direct experience. I have travelled in Europe, India, and visited the US and Gabon in Africa. I have met people fromany countries, mostly scientists and engineers.

We all have to judge from the evidence and our personal experience. I judge that Putin is leading a brutal and immoral war against Ukraine, and has rebuilt the Russian state towards the level of brutality not seen since Stalin's time.

You have the right to disagree. As long as you don't live in Russia.

No, what you have done is make assertions as if they are statements of facts in the absence of...you know...facts

[Ralphw2]

Islamic State is very not a defunct organisation. If you believe that then you are very ignorant of world events. Although I am happy to believe that the US has previously funded some very unpleasant people to do very illegal and violent things, the Islamic State is now very much it's own master.

They do not need any encouragement from their deepest enemies to sow death and destruction among the regime that is sending tens of thousands of fellow Muslims to death in the fields of Ukraine.

[Ralphw2]

I report what I see and hear and read, and try very hard not to overstate the evidence


Now I need to sleep.

[BritDownUnder]

I expect these four suspects that Russia has, after a certain amount of 'interrogation' will implicate Ukraine in the attack. I think Georgia was to 'blame' for a few attacks in Russia in the 2000s. There is a certain amount of schadenfreude when a brutal regime is attacked in such a way or receives the same punishment it has meted out on others earlier. It seems odd that this time the attackers were caught alive though. That seems odd.

Moscow has a lot of people from Central Asia who may think along the same lines as these four.

I think IS was behind an attack in Iran a few months back - or maybe that was false flag also.

[Ralphw2]

The BBC is showing video of the men in court. They all appear badly beaten. The BBC is reporting about the leaked videos of their interrogations which show them being tortured.

Is the BBC just some guy on the internet?

Of course we only have Russia's word that these are the right men.

[northernmonkey]

The BBC is showing video of the men in court. They all appear badly beaten. The BBC is reporting about the leaked videos of their interrogations which show them being tortured.

Is the BBC just some guy on the internet?

Of course we only have Russia's word that these are the right men.

The BBC is the propaganda mouthpiece of the local management arm of the Western ruling class.

Did they provide links to the videos or show any of them?

[clv101]

I expect the next significant move in this conflict will be the deployment of several thousand non-Ukrainian troops into Ukraine, likely French, but also possibly Baltic states and Poland too. Initially these troops wouldn't be on the active front line, but would be away from the front in logistic roles or along the Belarusian boarder. The objective would be two-fold, firstly free up thousands of Ukrainians for redeployment to the active front line and secondly, especially for France, to get some on the ground experience. To learn from the Ukrainians how to fight a peer power.