Hey david f,

“You furnish the pictures and I’ll furnish the war”

http://medium.com/covilian-military-intelligence-group/you-furnish-the-pictures-and-ill-furnish-the-war-67de6c0e1210

I don't even need to look this one up.
Years later they sent divers to explore the wreck.
It was found that the explosion occurred from the inside not the outside, as the blast blew outwards of the hull.
I'm not saying it was deliberate, (I don't know) but it wasn't a mine.
FYI, I haven't read the above article.

Hey Fester,
"I doubt the Ukrainians would have used it to level Mariupol and a theatre full of civilians..."

Why?
Why would you doubt it?

Either the babooshkas are lying, or Ukraine did in fact do it.
A good investigative journalist wouldn't just rely on one persons testimony, they'd get several and corroborate the story.
- To find out the truth.

All we have is reporters in the West and no-one even goes there to find out.
At least I'm watching accounts sourced from the front instead of watching Pro-Ukrainian government sourced puff-pieces.

I don't know what the truth is, I wasn't there;
But based upon other accounts of other events, I think on face value it's a likely possibility they're telling the truth.

"Further, how likely is it that the Russian army would be influenced by accusations of atrocities?"
More importantly, why would they want to deliberately kill the people they're claiming to liberate?
- Unless of course the Ukrainians were using at as a firing position, but even then it was clearly marked (for drone surveillance) as having children inside.

"Another reason might be that the Ukrainian forces have moral constraints."
I wonder whether you truly believe the Ukrainian army and leadership are morally good decent people or whether you have cognitive dissonance and can't perceive the idea that people are capable of such horrific things.

"Looking at the performance of the Ukrainian army, they seem to have a very effective strategy."
- Clearly based upon the things I've shared with all of you, there are different accounts of the current situation.

"...a major reason that the September counteroffensive was so successful"
- The Ukrainians have failed to make any significant gains where the Russian chose to stay and fight, and did not make a tactical withdrawl themselves, and I've already gone to lengths to explain all of this.
When you suggest things to me that I find are believeable, like Russians fleeing in Melitopol, I say so and acknowledge it.
But when I say things even in the face of eyewitness accounts, you think it not credible.

"Knocking out the Kerch Bridge would make it much easier to take the south, but as Russia seems to be losing the war of attrition it will get increasingly difficult for them to maintain the front as the conflict continues."

Yeah, but only if you support them using an innocent dupe to drive a truckload of fertilizer over it.
http://thegrayzone.com/2022/10/10/ukrainian-kerch-bridge/

Any pre-made Ukrainian postage stamps come to mind here?
- Propaganda war.

I look at the propaganda war and the difference in what the different sides are saying.
Seems to me the West has run out of sanctions, military options and the only thing they have left to cling to is the idea that maybe they can create a situation where Putin will be undermined and removed by other Russians.

Which is a good reason to tell all this lies and propaganda.
Keep up there own (barely existent) troop morale.

Sell the war to less informed western citizens to buy their complicity.
And hope that by some miracle all these lies will be spread inside Russia and lead to regime change and Putins ousting.

That's all they've got.
In the meantime they will continue to send teenagers, elderly and handicapped Ukrainian conscripts into the meat-grinder.
The whole thing is unsettling, and the people who are winning are corrupt Ukrainian leadership selling off weapons on the black market and warmongering politicians from Washington getting kickbacks from the Military Industrial Complex.

Dear David F.,

Thank you for your insightful post. We can and should
learn from history. In this particular war however -
the war could end at any moment if Putin decided to end
it. It does not look like he's going to do that - unless
Ukraine gives him what he wants. Russia invaded Ukraine.
If Russia chose to stop fighting in Ukraine and left -
it would be the end of the war.

However if Ukraine chose to stop fighting and give up, it
would be the end of Ukraine.

Hi AC,

Amnesty International investigated and thought the Mariupol theatre bombing a Russian war crime, but we are just the peanut gallery trying to make sense of things.

If you want to do the job properly as the Russians do you store your ammunition under the barracks. That might have killed about 600 and destroyed the ammunition, but it wasn't a war crime. Apparently there were so many dead that some fell off the trucks that were sent in to cart them away. Lots of spies in occupied territory ready to tip off the Ukrainians.

http://mobile.twitter.com/wartranslated/status/1609661145366790147

Hi Fester,
I see the details of the strike are shown on Ukrinform.
http://www.ukrinform.net/rubric-ato/3645029-about-400-occupiers-eliminated-in-makiivka-stratcom.html

The Nexta Live translation there says:

"More and more details on covering the base of the occupiers in Makeyevka. There were at least 600 people of their personnel. As it turned out, the building of the local vocational school was fired upon, where the superminds decided to place hundreds of newly arrived “mobiles”. 'Voyenkors' and other data noise are furious: there was not even a shelter! They call the decision to deploy soldiers a crime.
It is noteworthy that it arrived almost exactly at midnight - the New Year for the invaders never came."

I think the telegram channel the tweet you linked goes to a Pro-Russian telegram channel, but I havent heard it mentioned anywhere on the youtube channels I watch yet.

War is a nasty business, right?
If true, (and I'm not saying it isn't) I'd agree that it was pretty foolish putting that much troop concentration together on NYE within HIMARS range.
What were they doing, having a damn party?

"Lots of spies in occupied territory ready to tip off the Ukrainians."

Yes, I've heard it mentioned that Russians are trying to find these people.
- I'm not sure how they'd go about it though.