Posted on 04/18/2022 2:11:14 PM PDT by Eleutheria5
LVIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia launched its long-feared, full-scale offensive to take control of Ukraine's east, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced Monday.
“Now we can already state that the Russian troops have begun the battle for the Donbas, for which they have been preparing for a long time," he said in a video address. Zelenskyy said a "significant part of the entire Russian army is now concentrated on this offensive.”
The Donbas is Ukraine’s mostly Russian-speaking industrial heartland in the east, where Moscow-backed separatists have been fighting Ukrainian forces for the past eight years and have declared two independent republics that have been recognized by Russia.
In recent weeks, Kremlin declared the capture of the Donbas its main goal of the war after its attempt to storm Kyiv failed.
“No matter how many Russian troops are driven there, we will fight,” Zelenskyy vowed. "We will defend ourselves. We will do it every day.”
The announcement from Zelenskyy came as Russia bombarded the western city of Lviv and numerous other targets across Ukraine in what appeared to be an intensified bid to grind down the country's defenses. At the same time, the Kremlin continued building up its forces in the east.
At least seven people were reported killed in the missile strikes on Lviv, a city close to the Polish border that has seen only sporadic attacks during almost two months of war and has become a haven for civilians fleeing the fighting elsewhere. To the Kremlin’s increasing anger, Lviv has also become a major gateway for NATO-supplied weapons.
In other developments, a few thousand Ukrainian troops, by Russia's estimate, remained holed up at a mammoth steel mill in Mariupol, the last known pocket of resistance in the devastated southern port city.
And Zelenskyy submitted a filled-out questionnaire...
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(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Given their general “performance”, russists would quite likely blow themselves up.
What do you mean ?
Impossible to know, since we can’t see the battlefield, but I would think CS gas would be effective against underground bunkers. It always works on TV.
No need for a damn nuke left in Mariupol.
Si! Ukraine is winning. Bigtime. This is what MSM tells us.
So, Virginia, if the Times says it is true, it must be so.
(with apologies to all the foreign speakers and writers on FR who do not understand downhome American humor. I suggest you take a crash course on the works of Mark Twain. Then follow up with some Mencken, Erma Bombeck, and Dorothy Parker. With a little Ogden Nash and Dave Barry on the side.)
So many Ninotchkas, so little time!
I also don’t think that will happen.
Correct.
But, once you start using tactical nukes (or the threat thereof) to gain territory, where does it stop?
I think it only stops when every country has their own tactical nukes to retaliate with.
It would be a very dangerous situation, so I’m not making light of it. But to start a full on launch ‘em all nuke war is far, far worse. I would try to use spooks to get someone high up in Russia to whack the nut.
On a fast timescale...
www.Riafan.ru has better real time maps and detailed coverage, news articles.
That would require NATO, more likely to trigger WWIII than lopping off a few fishing villages in the Far East.
Eastern /Southern Ukraine is in rubble. Many weapons entry points along the western border are in ruins.The Ukies Air Force, radar installations, ammo depots destroyed, military equipment depleted, etc… It will take a decade with US taxpayers money to rebuild ( minus 10 percent for Joe).
Doesn’t sound like winning to me.
“.. I don’t care..”
but others do
Isn’t that site in Russian?
The look on his face - “I didn’t know rabbits could talk!”
Or the Ukrainians grab one from the Russian stocks in Crimea or from the wreck of the Moskva.
When borders start shifting, now is the time to “fix” more than one.
FWIW, here's an interesting presentation by Col Sam Gardner (USAF RET) who taught strategy at the National War College, Naval War College and Air War College. It's a possible use of Russian tactical nukes in Ukraine, and how to respond.
It wasn’t until Sept. 1945 that Americans understood nukes cause fallout. They just thought nukes were a big scary bomb at the time.
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