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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsRussia attacked Ukraine yesterday! How was this not covered widely and loudly?
Ukraine reports 1 KIA, 2 WIA's amid 32 enemy attacks in Donbas on Oct 4
https://www.unian.info/m/war/10709802-ukraine-reports-1-kia-2-wia-s-amid-32-enemy-attacks-in-donbas-on-oct-4.html
"The armed forces of the Russian Federation and its mercenaries violated the ceasefire 32 times on October 4. One Ukrainian soldier was killed and another two were wounded as a result of enemy shelling. The circumstances are being established by an ad hoc group of Ukraine's military law enforcement service. The Command of the Joint Forces expresses condolences to the relatives and friends of the deceased," the press center of Ukraine's Joint Forces Operation Headquarters said in an update posted on Facebook as of 07:00 Kyiv time on October 5.
The enemy opened fire from proscribed 120mm and 82mm mortars, cannons installed on infantry fighting vehicles, grenade launchers of various types, and small arms. Under attack came Ukrainian positions near the towns of Avdiyivka, Maryinka, and Zolote, and the villages of Vodiane, Pavlopil, Novohnativka, Novotroyitske, Lebedynske, Bohdanivka, Verkhniotoretske, Novoluhanske, Luhanske, Myronivske, Zaitseve, Krymske, and Novotoshkivske.
Fyi. Interesting thread on gas lines in Ukraine
Link to tweet
Full thread! Wow!!
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1180657343316414464.html
tblue37
(64,980 posts)elleng
(130,147 posts)pangaia
(24,324 posts)alittlelark
(18,886 posts)triron
(21,915 posts)They would have made Adolf happy.
BadgerMom
(2,766 posts)I stumbled across a Twitter feed that reports daily on Russian attacks and skirmishes in Donbas, Ukraine. It listed the number per day and, if Im remembering correctly, casualties. (I didnt bookmark the tweet and do not remember the writers name.) For me it was an aha! moment. Of course, there were battles in eastern Ukraine. Of course, American media wasnt reporting it regularly, what with all the news occurring here daily. But it hadnt been in my consciousness at all. All of which is to say that maybe todays news is about an escalation. But maybe its that weve not been paying enough attention at any point after the initial attacks.
Karole Cummins Thread is frightening.
Buckeyeblue
(5,491 posts)We get very little world news. That's why as a whole US citizens are largely ignorant of world issues. Or maybe it's the other way around...Because we are so ignorant of the rest of the world, mainstream news doesn't bother.
If Russia invaded the Ukraine I'm not sure we would do anything. Trump would blame it on Biden or Hillary's emails.
Tommy_Carcetti
(43,085 posts)Roland99
(53,342 posts)It's been happening regularly. Thousands of Ukrainian soldiers and civilians have been killed since peace broke out. Even the Trump phone call involved, ultimately, aid. Anti-tank missiles came up, because Ukraine is terrified that once again Russian tanks will pour into the Donbas. Ukrainian tanks are T-64s and 70s. They're old and were Warsaw Bloc staples--everybody had them. Russia's upgraded its tanks and retired thousands T-64 and T-70s. In 2014 one of the tells of Russian interference were the reports that a lot of tank maintenance people were called to service and get those Russian tanks ready for operation. Another was that there were satellite photos of sites with hundreds of retired obsolete tanks one month, and the next month those sites were bare ground. You can't easily tell a Russian T-64 or T-70 from a Russian one except by its markings; the Donbas tanks were repainted to have no markings. Russia still has thousands of old tanks. Ukraine should be afraid--the only cost to Russia of sending those tanks into Ukraine is the price of materials ($0--they cannibalize other tanks, the servicemen are already on staff) and gasoline. Lots of Russians and Ukrainians trained on those tanks.
We were promised "no frozen conflict", but that's pretty much what's happened. A lot of people either lied or welshed on their debt. The lines don't move, but soldiers and civilians die every day from gunfire along the border, from artillery shelling. Some areas have been without decent power or water for years, because every time services are restored that's just another target.
(Hmmm ... "Welsh" ... There's a verb I haven't seen banned yet. Maybe I just wasn't paying attention. Anyway ...)
Every step taken in the name of avoiding a frozen conflict was predictably sure of producing precisely a frozen conflict. But since every step taken was the "right step" for avoidance, once the big casualty numbers stopped the media decided to declare victory and go home. Most media folk couldn't say, "Um, this was a certainty given what was done by Europe and the West." It didn't help that the 2016 election was coming up, and a lot of media folk that had been sort of sympathetic to Russia were betrayed. Like it or not, all the "look at all the fascists fighting on the Ukrainian side" stories made supporting Ukraine difficult and was precisely the Russian narrative (where "fascist" just means "somebody who doesn't like Russia" . It was an ideologically difficult war to cover in 2014, and also in 2016 and 2017. And since then omphaloskepsis has become a kind of political meditation/centering fad.
Recently it was announced an agreement that, taken one way, is a step to reintegration of the Donbas. However, take it slightly differently and it's a capitulation, a guarantee of autonomy, increased Russian influence that makes it easy for the Donbas to create disruption in the rest of the country and be a continued drain on the country. At the same time, the autonomy makes disintegration so easy as to become almost unavoidable. Of course, the deal it requires massive Ukrainian aid to rebuild the territory and get everything running again--Russia pays nothing to its allies (under this deal) or to those it hurt. A bonus for Russia is that the rebuilding and concomitant lack of hostilities means it gets to stop paying for the war and to prop up its dumbass offspring Donbas. And it also gives cover to Europeans who desperately want to rely on Russian natural gas and not have to abide by sanctions they were sure would produce victory even in the face of impossible historical odds. (I.e., Russia gambled on a sure thing where the bookies had blindly claimed there was high risk. Personally, I'm surprised the sanctions have held this long, but there's been the whole US election mess, Skripal, etc., helping to keep them going.)
Of course, if the Donbas secedes and joins Russia, Russia isn't going to want to invest money fixing the territory they helped trash. Better to let the West and Ukraine dump in billions before deeding it over. (Think of it as rich parents buying a fixer-upper for their kids. They have to fix it up first, right?)
bluedigger
(17,077 posts)Honestly, it sounds like Ukraine is winning the war of attrition if that is the best the Russians can do in 32 attacks.