True or not, I'm surprised Russian troops have tolerated being terrorized by the Kadyrov units for so long.
Russian invasion of Ukraine | Fewer tweets, more discussion
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True or not, I'm surprised Russian troops have tolerated being terrorized by the Kadyrov units for so long.
I really hope Ukraine has some power in reserve here. Would be great to see a concerted push towards Mariupol to split the occupation zone into two before the winter, assuming of course that the conflict goes on that long.
Finally a video confirmation from Izyum.
Unsuccessful attempt to enter Pisky, which is just a couple km away from the Donetsk Airport.
Unsuccessful attempt to enter Pisky, which is just a couple km away from the Donetsk Airport.
Not exactly an orderly retreat. It'll be difficult for them to regroup and attack the Ukrainian forces again now that they've seemingly left all their hardware.
He did that a lot at the beginning as well. He’s a bit of a loose cannon and he’s only answering to Putin personally (and it’s unlikely that Putin has time to manage him at the moment), plus he’s extremely obsessed with creating this no-nonsense macho public image of himself.
By saying this he distanced himself from the failures on the ground and continues to remind everyone that he has an option to contact Putin directly.
Lots of chatter about them moving in that direction, through Vuhldehar apparently (?), but I don’t know what to believe just yet…
No, and as that guy alludes to, we simply don't know whether Ukraine has those reserves at all. It may have no-one or it may have enough for another two fronts for all we know. I think we're at a point where we can reasonably confidently say that the Ukranians aren't going to do anything stupid and over-commit forces that they need elsewhere and then can't disengage. They seem too well informed of Russian strength and troop movements to make that mistake. Earlier in the war I often wondered whether Putin really had given up on the idea of a mad 48 hour dash to Kyiv to cut off the head of the enemy, but the level of intelligence coming from the US/UK makes me confident that if that plan was being made then the US would know about it before the Russian officers in Belarus who 'd actually execute the plan would even know.
Latest map from pro Russian Telgram channel Rybar.
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Ukraine has made a decent progress in Kherson too in the past few days even though it was of course overshadowed by the Kharkiv news.
He is also distancing himself from the established leadership in Russia by those comments. He is only reporting to Putin, but what happens if Putin is gone? Will Kadyrov stay in the fold or if the Russian/Putin government collapses will he try to finally have Chechnya fully souvereign and independent from Russia? After all the Chechnyan troops are sworn in personally on him and not on Russia/Putin...
Not bad for a decoy operation.
Who knows, really. I doubt that Kadyrov is really interested in independence — Chechen economy is hugely reliant on the financial support from federal government. It’s been the trade-off between Putin and Akhmat Kadyrov (Ramzan’s father) — Putin showers Kadyrov with money and gives him virtually free reign over Chechnya, Kadyrov destroys the internal movement for Chechnya’s (or Ichkeria as they wanted to be called) independence and ensures that the terrorist threat to other Russian regions stops.
Without the money from the Russian federal budget Chechnya would be a very poor and still politically insignificant state and Kadyrov’s personal influence would for sure be significantly diminished.
Another scenario where Kadyrov tries to increase his influence over Russia and, say, tries to become Putin’s successor (I doubt that he’s interested in any other role) is also pretty much impossible to imagine if only because of the innate Russian nationalism — Chechnya & chechens were the boogie men of late 90’s-00’s and there’s still a significant dislike-to-hatred for people from Caucasian republics in general Russian population (denazification my ass).
Forgive my ignorance but all these Chechen soldiers.
Obviously they are being paid but surely there will be a time where they say “feck that I’m not dying in this shitshow “?
Maybe, but I think their role is making sure that conscripts die before them. IE they are not so much on the frontline but used as "morale boosters".
Moreover, I think Kadyrov understands his fate and power structure are tied to Putin's survival and financial support, which is why he's losing the plot a bit about failures in Ukraine lately - because that weakens Putin from within, and by extension Kadyrov as well.
Аrent they more of a blocking force?
This is next to the Russian border, 40km south of Belgorod. Confirms that the Russian troops north of Kharkiv have retreated back into Russia.
Would be nice to see where Russian troops are now against where they were in Donbass the day before the war began.
The issue with Chechnya is that their families are basically held hostage — not literally but if they decide to run away, at the very least they are going to be disowned, at worst their family members can be kidnapped/arrested (sometimes it's hard to spot a difference between the two). Defectors are also going to be in danger for life whenever they flee — if it's in Russia, Chechen policemen can semi-legally steal people even from other regions; if it's somewhere abroad it's obviously much safer but there were still cases of different Chechen defectors (LGBT activists, political activists, women that escaped arranged marriages etc.) getting kidnapped back to Chechnya or even killed (Mamikhan Umarov in Austria, Imran Aliev in France).
I'm not just speculating btw — there are tons of examples on every "punishment". The latest infamous case was with the Yangulbayev family — the father was a federal judge (already in retirement), his sons were political activists (one was a lawyer working for a non-government organization named the "committee against torture"). In January 2021 the eldest son came public saying that around 40 of his relatives are missing, after a few days police raided his house (outside of Chechnya) under the suspicion of terrorist activity, later that month police raided the father's flat (again, not in Chechnya), letting him go (he still had immunity as a retired judge) but taking his wife back to Chechnya — originally as a "witness" but later as a perpetrator of some insane crimes which included kicking the shit out of multiple policemen while resisting arrest. She's still under arrest. Kadyrov has said, openly, that the entire family are terrorists and they'll make sure that their place is either in jail or below the ground.
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Thank you for the reply.
Wow , that really is a shitty situation.
Maybe a complete reset is the best option.
I'm aware of the current situation, but I wonder (and I guess Kadyrow does, too) what will happen to him if Putin is gone? Would a successor keep the current arrangement ongoing, or would he (whoever he would be) see Kadyrov as a risk he should get rid off. If it's the latter I guess it would make sense for Kadyrov to be president of his own insignificant state outside Russian reach (assuming the Russian army gets heavily beaten and generally in trouble) rather than being killed for being a political risk. Bit of a "all-or-nothing" experiment for him.
Blackouts across the Kharkiv region. Russia hitting the power grids putting eastern Ukraine into darkness.
Somehow knew they'd not leave without a sting in the tail.
Somehow knew they'd not leave without a sting in the tail.
Terrorising and killing civilians is what they do best so yeah, no surprises. When they have to fight against the army they run like chickens.
I think it's a given that they will try to destroy as much of the vital infrastructure before the winter as possible, especially the heating plants.
just heard they've targetted every power plant across ukraine. i thought this would happen in the event that ukraine made any advance. it's where it gets dangerously high alert for eveyone. it's a sign that russia will do things it has not yet done should it find itself on a major defensive.
Think we now know what they were doing at Zaporizhzhia.
Back to doing war crimes again.
Prove it.
last two lines!
Come on!
Very smart usage of missiles that cost over $10m each just to cause a few hours of blackouts.
Electricity is back up again too in affected regions. Hundreds of millions of US dollars that could have gone into making lives of ordinary Russians better end up causing electricity disturbances for a few hours in Ukraine.