Sounds like the Ukrainian Offensive on Kherson tonight is Confirmed

OSINTdefender ^ | 3/24/2022 | @sentdefender

[marcusmaximus]

Sounds like the Ukrainian Offensive on Kherson tonight is Confirmed.

Ukrainian Forces are beginning a Large Scale Southern Offensive from the City of Mykolaiv and from the North involving Heavy Armor, Artillery and Air Assets towards the Russian Occupied City of Kherson and its Airport.

[icclearly]

“uccloudy”

Yes. Either one will work — uccloudy or icclearly.

Ukraine war: 2 ‘superbombs’ dropped in Mariupol, Zelenskyy turns to Pope
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/4049652/posts

[Drew68]

I have seen some of the videos, like the ones showing people tied to poles with packing tape being hit by grandmas. Those are images of people caught engaging in crimes like looting. Ukraine isn't like some liberal city in America, old Russian ladies think nothing of hitting thieves with a switch.

I've seen those videos as well. They weren't the ones I posted. The videos I posted were about Azov shooting civilians trying to leave, Azov shelling residential buildings, and Azov holding civilians hostage in their homes.

And in case you didn't notice the people doing the hitting are speaking Russian.

All of Ukraine is fluent in Russian. Even if it's not their primary language, everyone speaks it. Zelesnki himself had to learn Ukrainian. He speaks Russian primarily. His hit Ukrainian TV show, "Servant of the People" was filmed in Russian as is most Ukrainian entertainment. Ukraine's biggest pop stars sing in Russian. It's not unusual. Russian is the primary language of a significant geographical segment of the country and everyone understands it.

[lodi90]

You’re replying to the wrong person. I agree with you.

[ought-six]

“Poroshenko including them in the military - and also sent them to the Donbass area.”

Is that the same Poroshenko the Azovs are reported to have attacked? I guess they turned on him.

[Paul R.]

IMO, that question may depend on whether a long term view is sought. If Russia is not severely beaten back, this crap is gonna just keep on happening. It takes a LOT to change centuries old patterns. I suspect Zelenskyy and co. have figured this out.

Now, it MAY be that a settlement which includes no NATO for Ukraine (meaningless as that actually is*), some minor increase in autonomy for Crimea and very limited portions of Donbas, hefty UN troops in Donbas, and some formal (but, again, essentially meaningless) declaration of official Ukrainian repudiation of “Nazis”, could be worked out. Putin lies about everything else - he could declare victory for home consumption.

*The “NATO threat” is a phony front. Too many NATO countries oppose Ukraine entering NATO for it to happen. Putin knows that. But, a “NATO threat” makes a pretty good lie to spit out there for ignorant people, people kept ignorant, fools, and tools.

Based on relative economic productivity and flexibility, America will be hurt far less than Russia. It is also true that the US has far less tolerance for economic damage than does Russia. But how I think that resolves is that if this goes on until November, the Dems will suffer truly catastrophic losses, and energy policies will be reversed by veto-proof votes in Congress. (Would Congress simultaneously toss out Biden AND Harris? Hmmm...) The US could come out with minimal long term damage. Europe and some of those poorer countries have a much tougher road ahead. For those poorer countries, if this doesn’t end quickly, the food shortage dice may have already been rolled. For Europe it’s mostly the “energy” dice. How faat can Nuke reactors be brought back online, and how much gas do they really have in storage? How fast can alternate LNG come on line? Germany thinks it can replace 1/3 of its imports from Russia with US supplied LNG fairly quickly. That’s a good start.

Europe may be at max capacity for refugees soon, just from Ukraine. That’s going to be a big problem. I’m guessing they’ll be forced to refuse surges from the ME and Africa. And... How would Egyptians, say, too poor to buy food, get to the US southern border?

[BeauBo]

“Ukraine needs to blow the E97 bridge in Kherson to cut off Russian resupply from Crimea.”

And blow the bridge TO Crimea from Russia as well (Around Kerch, at the Eastern tip of Crimea).

Just dump another huge logistical burden on top of the Russian General Staff.

[tet68]

We will probably see an increase in Ukrainian casualties
as a result of going on the offensive.

Again if Russia is as seemingly inept at defense as they
have been at offense it could go badly for them.

[BeauBo]

“For Europe it’s mostly the “energy” dice. How fast can Nuke reactors be brought back online, and how much gas do they really have in storage? How fast can alternate LNG come on line? Germany thinks it can replace 1/3 of its imports from Russia with US supplied LNG fairly quickly. “

The Germans assessed it unlikely to restart offline nukes, or even extend the life of those scheduled to close down. That may be political will disguised as an objective decision.

In addition to the big US LNG supply contract, they committed big funding to building two big LNG ports in Germany. That will take a while, but those projects were hung up in limbo for long time, and now they are full steam ahead.

Another big option for Germany is burning more coal. They have the infrastructure to do it for their electric grid (idle coal-fired generation capacity), and have already ramped it up.

[Paul R.]

Right. If a nuke power plant is due for a major refurb and the Germans just shut it down for good instead, the $$ might be better spent on other alternatives that can be ramped up more quickly, instead of a costly 3-year refurb.

I would think this next winter will be the big crunch.

[MarMema]

I don’t know that those are apt buildings or that Russia bombed them. Neither do you.

https://consortiumnews.com/2022/03/23/pentagon-drops-truth-bombs-to-stave-off-war-with-russia/

[Paul R.]

Heavily biased article quoting anonymous sources. Right. And yet, all it really does is say Putin HAS hit civilian targets, but could have hit a lot more civilian targets, so we should be happy. Never mind that the whole invasion is a war crime based on lies.