The Brink of War?

[Dodger]

The pride of the Russian Navy - Flagship Moskva has been abandoned in the Black Sea due to a massive explosion and is down for the count.

The Ukrainian military first reported that they struck the Moskva with missile fire - then 2 hours later Russia reported that the explosion on-board was the result of ammunition somehow catching on fire. Huh? Are they saying the same thing? I mean I guess if a missile hits a ship it could cause the ammunition to catch on fire. Unless the Russian navy is saying that one of their soldiers inadvertently flipped a lit cigarette into the munition storage area - causing the explosion - and it wasn't a Ukrainian missile at all.??? Such a mystery.

In any event, the ship is now out of commission.

https://edition.cnn.com/2022/04/14/e...-ml/index.html

[Dodger]

The reasons why Russia is losing so many tanks explained:

\\https://www.bbc.com/news/world-61021388

[dab69]

Russia is losing expensive planes because they are outfitted with simple cheap bombs instead of cruise missles.
Putin doesn't care about the pilots they lose.

[dab69]

The Ukrainian military said the Russian vehicles were traveling to Izyum in eastern Ukraine, where Russian troops have been staging for assaults in the Donbas region. Photos shared by the Ukrainian special forces show that explosives had apparently been placed under the bridge in anticipation of a Russian column heading toward it.

"A group of SSO of Ukraine blew up a bridge with enemy technology heading to Izyum," Ukrainian Special Operations Forces said in a Facebook post.

"Putting the explosive in a designated place, operators of the SSO of Ukraine waited for the enemy, who without any doubt drove to the death meeting."

According to the Ukrainian military, the "entire enemy column" was destroyed.

Hours earlier, the Ukrainian military appeared to have delivered a major blow to Russia's navy in the Black Sea when the flagship vessel Moskva was reportedly hit with missiles, and its crew was forced to abandon ship.

A Ukrainian official said on Thursday that the ship had been sunk.

The Russian Defense Ministry has acknowledged that the ship was "seriously damaged" but blamed the blast on ammunition detonating as a result of a fire on board.


https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world...aR2?li=BBnb7Kz

[dab69]

Apparently if you get too close to Ukraine coast with your warships they accidentally sink.
Other warships have now moved further away to prevent "accidents"(and sinking).

[cdnmatt]

I really like this Peter Zyhelm guy. He just makes things make sense.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTu7JNZCcxA

"we have to start thinking of what it's going to look like when Russia doesn't have a naval presence in the Black Sea, because that's probably going to happen within a couple months". heh.

[Dodger]

Russia now confirms that the Flagship Moskva has sank in the Black Sea. Note that earlier reports (from Russia) claimed that the Moskva had made it safely back to port. Opps!

Ukraine has repeated its claims that the Moskva was struck by Ukrainian missiles not far off the shores of Snake Island causing the destruction. Russia seems hesitant to acknowledge this.

There's no concealing the fact that Russia's military has exposed a whole host of serious deficiencies. Trucks which constantly break down due to lack of basic preventive maintenance, or simply run out of gas due to poor logistical planning, tanks which are easily spotted and destroyed by Ukrainian ambushes (by the hundreds) due to poor leadership and planning, whole columns of infantry getting bogged down, lost, and stranded, top ranking officers (including generals) getting wiped out at record-setting levels, troops running out of ammunition and basic supplies like food and water, and a deepening lack of morale among Russian troops - many of whom have reportedly deserted or surrendered without a fight.

You hear a lot about Putin's miscalculations which are contributing to his defeat on the World Stage, and the potential consequences of those actions - but you don't hear a lot about the damage being caused to the "Perception" that the World has relative to Russia's Military capabilities. The two things that many countries have to be thinking right now is; 1) Russia's Military isn't anywhere close to being as strong and capable as we were being led to believe via years of Russian propaganda, and 2) Putin doesn't value human life, including the lives of his own Russian citizens, which will continue to alienate him from even his closest allies over time. It's inevitable. Nothing can stop him from destroying himself. It's just a matter of how many people he takes down with him.

[cdnmatt]

Russia threatens to move nukes to Baltic region if Finland, Sweden join NATO

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world...d-sweden-nato/

Ummm... Russia already has hyper sonic missiles that can reach the US in 30 minutes, so what kind of threat is moving nuclear missiles a few hundred km closer to Europe?

You know you're in a weak position when the only thing you can do is brag to the world you have nukes. Yep, we're already well aware of that, thanks.

[dab69]

In an unprecedented move, Russia has been expelled from the UN Human Rights Council

The United Nations General Assembly voted on April 7 to suspend Russia from the entity’s human rights body
among accusations of war crimes during the Ukrainian invasion.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world...GTG?li=BBnb7Kz

[dab69]

Russia tries to scare Finland and Sweden away from NATO by threatening to deploy nukes in the Baltics, which it's already done

Nuclear weapons have always been kept in Kaliningrad...the international community, the countries in the region, are perfectly aware of this...They use it as a threat," he added.

The Federation of American Scientists (FAS) in 2018 published satellite images that it said showed "a major renovation of what appears to be an active nuclear weapons storage site in the Kaliningrad region, about 50 kilometers from the Polish border."

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world...l0D?li=BBnb7Kz