Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, claims victory against Russia

Nypost ^ | 02/27/2022 | Ben Kesslen and Lee Brown

[Greetings_Puny_Humans]

You and George Soros are on the same side. Think about it.

Yeah, this sort of "if you don't support my retarded point of view you support the devil" argumentation is unlikely to work on me. I'm too smart for it. Try someone dumber.

[rbmillerjr]

I think the Russians should get out. Even if they win, with terrible losses, the occupation will be 100 times worse.

https://twitter.com/EnglishUkraine/status/1497986717470580744

[rbmillerjr]

Putin has united NATO and now everybody knows the peace dividend is over.

Putin awakens the German sleeping giant and a much stronger NATO.

[CatHerd]

Earlier, BBC was passing off an old photo damage to apartment buildings in Donetsk from Ukrainian shelling as damage in Kharkov from Russian shelling.

But if reports are true about tonight’s Russian MLRS barrages, we may see some sad pictures tomorrow that are real.

[Sequoyah101]

IF a change comes it will be by the Russian oligarchs or mafia. They are not happy at all right now. They are very easy to track and to contain their wealth on the international stage. What happens there depends on how pissed the rest of the world becomes with Putin. Right now I’d say they are pretty pissed and scared and getting more-so each passing minute.

I am struggling to see how this ends. Nobody wants a return to the days of the Soviet Union. Not Russians, Ukraine, none of the FSU satellites, not Western Europe and not the US. I don’t see how Putin can claim that taking Ukraine is necessary to prevent it from joining NATO and act as a buffer state to Russia without doing the same to any other bordering state. What is more, the Ukrainians will be unwilling subjects to anyone and they are armed now and will become more so all the time. Russia will have no peace without genocide. Will the world allow that? I don’t know. They shouldn’t.

Having gone this far I don’t see Putin withdrawing. If he does he should still be a dead man. I doubt Ukrainians forget him soon.

Principles are good to talk about but usually disappear when sacrifice and personal pain are required to keep them.

[Svartalfiar]

No, if Russia wants Ukraine they will have to bring in the heavy artillery and go scorched earth.They will have to kill women and children as well as civilian fighters in mass genocide reminiscent of what the Nazis did to Ukraine in 1939. The Ukrainians are not going to give up.

The Russians can win this, But it would be a phyric victory. There would be next to nothing left.

As I've said elsewhere, most of Putin's official reason for going in was to remove the "Nazis" that took over leadership of the country, to save the Russia/loving populace from them. If he starts hitting civilian structures and infrastructure willy-nilly, that undermines the whole reason he officially went in there. I don't see him doing that, not too excessively, anyway.

[fireman15]

Kiev is surrounded but in Kharkiv they won. My anxiety is through the roof. I need the real story.

The amount of BS being passed around here by all of the armchair generals is staggering. If you believe that you can get a true picture of what is going on through the news or your favorite commentator, you are deluding yourself.

The Russian's hope is obviously to change regimes in the Ukraine to one which will follow their instructions and then get back out. For the most part they are not destroying infrastructure, turning off the power, or even cutting off communications such as the internet, cell phones, land lines, or even social media. How is it really going? This is a “war” largely of misinformation and we will not know until it is over, and the details will not be very clear even then.

You will have a long wait.

[Bruce Campbells Chin]

A properly defended city is like the proverbial roach motel. The enemy may get in, but they can’t get out.

[Bruce Campbells Chin]

Gov. Oleh Synyehubov crowed in a triumphant Facebook post. Must be true then.

I remember Baghdad Bob popping on TV during the Iraq War making similar claims that the enemy had been defeated. The difference was that we routinely proved him a liar with our own broadcasts showing that our troops were exactly where he was claiming they weren't.

What's missing here are the corresponding Russian claims of victory. The photos and videos of triumphant Russian troops celebrating in front of government buildings and prominent monuments in Kharkiv don't seem to exist.

So at this point, I'm inclined to belief that the Russians have not yet achieved and maintained a significant foothold in the city. They surely are able to enter, but then encounter resistance and either are killed or forced to retreat.

[Bruce Campbells Chin]

To be blunt, they were killing muslim Chechens in Grozny, which is something that the Russian people might be more willing to accept. And whether it was fake or not, there were some underlying events that made the Russian people very unfavorably disposed to Chechens.

I think mass bombardments killing large number of Ukrainians -- along with many ethnic Russians -- may be a completely different story. Kharkiv is 3 times the size of Grozny, and I'm just not sure the Russian military would be willing to do that.

[Zhang Fei]

FYI, if you haven't already seen this other post:

The Germans have done a head-spinning U-turn. The analogy would be to the Pope suddenly declaring that he's really a devout Hindu (although that wouldn't surprise me). I suspect the appearance of 100,000 demonstrators in Berlin forced the chancellor's hand.

Up until now, the US was pushing the reluctant EU. Now the EU and Germany are out in front. The sanctions WILL hurt Russia, a lot, especially the rich. The weapons that the EU is paying for and sending will hurt Russia. Putin is like Japan at Pearl Harbor – he has awakened the sleeping eagle (albeit the German one) and it wasn’t a good idea to do so.

When the German chancellor, who has acted like Putin’s personal valet throughout suddenly does a U-turn - that’s when you sit up and take notice. When the Green weenies in Germany start talking about reviving coal, you know these people have seen the elephant, and are acting accordingly.

 

German chancellor Scholz in a fairly long formal speech in parliament an hour ago has announced five steps that the German government is taking:

1. Support Ukraine with weapon deliveries from Germany and Allies as an answer to Putin's aggression
2. Deter Putin from further aggression through sanctions and embargos, both against the country, its private business and "responsible individuals".
3. continue to increase deployed Bundeswehr units to support Eastern-European NATO allies.
   1. Maintain Battlegroup in Lithuania (being expanded with reserve forces).
   2. Contribute to second Battlegroup in Slovakia being built up (Germany will also take command of this second Battlegroup).
   3. Continue current adhoc-formed Air Policing deployment in Romania (training deployment with Italy was transformed to that)
   4. Continue current adhoc deployment of German Navy ships in patrols in Baltic Sea and Mediterranean.
   5. Ready air defence forces for deployment on NATO eastern borders if required.
4. Invest to increase Bundeswehr capabilities:
   1. Establish an immediate 100 billion Euro budget for 2022 to increase Bundeswehr capabilities.
   2. Permanently raise defence budget above 2% GDP.
   3. Prioritize projects with European partners, in particular France for new MBTs, future Eurofighter replacement and just signed Eurodrone project. Replace Tornado with SEAD-enabled Eurofighters and consider F-35 for nuclear delivery (and yes, he named the thing usually not named). Procure Heron UCAV from Israel.
   4. Increase hybrid warfare and cyber resilience.
   5. (Seek increased energy independence from Russia by expanding coal and gas reserves and building two LNG terminals.)
5. (didn't quite catch that - lots of bla about "ceasing naive exterior politics" of recent years and about alliances and "defending a peaceful Europe")

There was a lot of serious pathos and patriotistic platitudes throughout the speech, going as far as "we shall defend every square meter of NATO" and a "do not ask what you can get out of Brussels for your own country, but ask what is the best decision for The Union". The speech was accentuated by standing applause from most of the plenum (except the right-extremist pro-Putin AfD faction).

[VictoryGal]

> If he starts hitting civilian structures and infrastructure willy-nilly, that undermines the whole reason he officially went in there. I don’t see him doing that, not too excessively, anyway.

He’s already hit a kindergarten and some hospitals. Everybody knows his pretext is nonsense.

[Yashcheritsiy]

? I thought I saw video this AM of the Russians in control of Kharkiv?

[Cronos]

28th Feb 2022
mac_truck
https://freerepublic.com/focus/news/4042102/posts?page=51#51
“Russia controls Kharkiv...Dnipro is next.”

Oh you are so consistently wrong, it is funny