Agreed. Just like Snowden. You face justice in America. You don’t flee to one of America’s enemies just because you know you’ll be convicted under the law. They need to try both of them in absentia.
Ugh...CNN live "Russian forces stole buses driving to rescue people from Mariupol, Ukraine says From CNN's Andrew Carey, Yulia Presniakova and Hande Atay Alam A convoy of 11 empty buses — driving towards Mariupol to rescue fleeing Ukrainians — has been commandeered by Russian forces, according to the Ukrainian government. The Russians have driven the buses, along with the original bus drivers and several emergency services workers, to an undisclosed location the government says. Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said the buses were taken over at a Russian checkpoint outside Mangush, about 15 kilometers (about 9 miles) west of Mariupol."
Cnn live "Video shows cruise missiles launched off Crimean coast headed toward Ukraine From CNN's Sharif Paget Video has emerged showing the launch of cruise missiles from a vessel located off the coast of Crimea, just west of the city of Sevastopol. The video, which has been geolocated by CNN, shows the missiles heading toward Ukraine. "It’s clear there’s a ship standing out there in the distance," says a man's voice, speaking in Russian. "It's firing something, but where, you can't see."
Right, so it does work. The key takeaway here is that targeting civilians never work as civilians don't control policy. What does work is targeting combatants with no regard for collateral damage, something the Russians made work in Grozny and is now doing to Mariupol.
The Russians are not targeting combatants with civilian collateral damage. Unless you count indiscriminate firing on cities in the hope you hit a value target, but it doesn’t matter in a siege wheee civilian casualties are a goal, as “collateral damage.”
GTFOH. Block upon block of indiscriminately targeted and destroyed civilian structures and housing in multiple cites is not "going after combatants". Combatants aren't hiding there. It's wholesale destruction aimed at the civilian populace in order to terrorize and cow them into submission with no regard or concern whatsoever for how many are killed.
I saw a report that the Ukrainians have surrounded one of the Russian armies and cut off their supplies and reinforcements. Could be the biggest defeat of the Russian army in this war.
A bit more dire analysis regarding Ukraine's abilities….. “We have to remember that there are some pretty significant challenges the Ukrainians face….., But western officials and analysts said the Ukrainian losses were likely far higher: most agreed that an equivalent loss rate to Russia was plausible, equating to about 10 per cent of Ukraine’s troops. Senior [Ukrainian] officials have told me that supplies of anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons have slowed to a trickle and stocks are running low,” said Paul Grod, head of the Ukrainian World Congress, an NGO. “This needs to be addressed as soon as possible — otherwise Ukrainian fighters will be confronting Russian tanks with just machine guns.” Russian troops, meanwhile, have had their mobile phones confiscated by commanders — a lesson from its covert invasion of Crimea in 2014, and intended to give Russia greater control over information. Instead, it left a vacuum that was filled by Ukrainian content. For Russian forces in the east and the north — where logistical problems have been most acute, because supplies come from depots in Belarus via narrow, vulnerable roads, not rail — there are signs of regrouping. This has been aided by increased use of drones in the past week, according to one western military official.” Military briefing: Russian losses mask Ukraine’s vulnerabilities
And you know this how? You'd rather believe that the Russians are doing something that's clearly proven to NOT work, rather than something that's proven to work? I'll freely admit that I don't have any facts to prove my point, which makes my stance malleable should facts become available. Right now I'm basing it on the next best thing, which is what makes sense. It makes sense to me that Russia is trying to employ a tactic that's proven to work and has in fact worked many times for them in the past, not one that has been proven to not work across the world.
I read that earlier today, seems like a pretty good analysis that actually makes sense, is free of rhetoric, and is congruent with independently verifiable facts on the ground.
I do not know much about the actual combat tactics used by Russia in dealing with Chechnians or Syrians, but this author does not make their tactics sound very, well...tactical. "Scorched earth" generally describes mass destruction of civilian infrastructure and random killing of civilian popultions. Seems similar to what they are now doing in Ukraine. As Russia Stalls in Ukraine, Dissent Brews Over Putin’s Leadership
In Mariupol they are going scorched earth. This is not “selecting targets” at all. It’s depopulation. Surround the city, blockade food, indiscriminate shelling/bombing. If the reports of them taking civilians back into Russia against their will are correct, it’s also (yet another) war crime. What happens to these people back in Russia? In the west of Ukraine they haven’t employed this scorched earth strategy, perhaps because they don’t have the resources to even think about holding any of these areas. So the targets in those parts of the country presumably have a military purpose or some basis to believe are being used by the military. The attack on that barracks west of Lviv for example was obviously a strategic target. But in Mariopol they are clearly trying the depopulate the city, including intentionally killing civilians.
LVIV, Ukraine — Each night, Ukrainian pilots like Andriy loiter in an undisclosed aircraft hangar, waiting, waiting, until the tension is broken with a shouted, one-word command: “Air!” Andriy hustles into his Su-27 supersonic jet and hastily taxis toward the runway, getting airborne as quickly as possible. He takes off so fast that he doesn’t yet know his mission for the night, though the big picture is always the same — to bring the fight to a Russian Air Force that is vastly superior in numbers but has so far failed to win control of the skies above Ukraine. How Ukraine’s Outgunned Air Force Is Fighting Back Against Russian Jets
I know it from seeing the results of their indiscriminate bombing with my own two eyes, seeing many news reports from eyewitness reporters on the ground, reports from our own defense and state departments, before and after satellite imagery and common freakin’ sense. And they killed thousands of civilians in Chechnya and Syria doing the same thing. So attacking civilians and civilian structures apparently does work for them.
