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Is something going on in Ukraine?

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The Pentagon announces $300 million in new security assistance to Ukraine. The package includes:

6:07 PM · Apr 1, 2022·Twitter for iPhone

FPTDBWTWQAcGYit
 
Just too good not to post one more.

* its just amazing that he survives his rutine without shooting himself
 
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Dems and Rinos are going to flood the country, see how mid terms go. If Dems loose mid-terms, they'll make everyone a citizen. If the Dems win, they'll keep flooding the country till the next election (then make everyone a citizen).
This is how you get/keep power. It's not about the country. It's about keeping power and fk' everyone else.

Edit; to keep thread on track
link
In 2002, a single Javelin command launch unit cost $126,000, and each missile cost around $78,000 (equivalent to $111,000 in 2019). This is reinforced by the US Army's Fiscal Year 2018 unit cost for the Javelin weapon system, which put the unit cost at $206,705.
I just read British NLAW cost 25,000. link
 
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Dems and Rinos are going to flood the country, see how mid terms go. If Dems loose mid-terms, they'll make everyone a citizen. If the Dems win, they'll keep flooding the country till the next election (then make everyone a citizen).
This is how you get/keep power. It's not about the country. It's about keeping power and fk' everyone else.

Edit; to keep thread on track
link
In 2002, a single Javelin command launch unit cost $126,000, and each missile cost around $78,000 (equivalent to $111,000 in 2019). This is reinforced by the US Army's Fiscal Year 2018 unit cost for the Javelin weapon system, which put the unit cost at $206,705.
I just read British NLAW cost 25,000. link
Unfortunately, what you say is true. Once elected, it's all about getting re-elected.
A cornerstone of the "getting re-elected platform" is to blame every bad thing on other's and take credit for anything good. OBama was a master of that. American's are dumb as a box of rocks.

Example: Blame it on the Russians
 
I sure hope when the Heartland of America looks like the Ukraine the "Allies" will be coming help a brother out.
_____________
US is expected to help facilitate transfer of tanks from NATO allies to Ukraine, according to senior US officials. The tanks will be Soviet-era T-72 tanks, which Ukrainian military has experience operating and will be delivered "within days, not weeks,"

 
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This whole thing could be over in a couple days, but no. Whoever stole the 2020 election and installed shit for brains, wants a full scale battle.
Seriously, all the corrupt politicians can even keep their millions of tax payer dollars, just demilitarize Ukraine. Makes me think the MIC has their grubby paws in this.
 
This whole thing could be over in a couple days, but no. Whoever stole the 2020 election and installed shit for brains, wants a full scale battle.
Seriously, all the corrupt politicians can even keep their millions of tax payer dollars, just demilitarize Ukraine. Makes me think the MIC has their grubby paws in this.
History repeating itself... Evil / corruption
 

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Some interesting ww2 era guns making an appearance in this conflict.

Would you rather have a tokarov pistol or Makarov?

I was looking for scoped sks like in Serbia.

No K31s sighted.

 
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The Ukrainians, Latvians, Lithuanians, and Estonians that joined the SS where just trying to defend their homes from the Soviet Union.

You have to remember that Stalin had just starved 3 to 6 million Ukrainians to death.
As the Germans came in to the eastern block that was part of the USSR but not in Russia yet, they found thousands of people being killed by the NKVD. In one prison they found 1,000 Ukrainians shot dead before the NKVD left. In one town the Germans found the Ukrainians killing any Russian sympathizers by throwing them out of windows. The Ukrainians would also kill Jews because the Jews where pro communist.

In every one of those countries the Russians would go in and kill the people who owned farm land. They would then deport people from that area to the gulag and replace them with Russians. This is why the eastern part of Ukraine is very pro Russian.
 
The Ukrainians, Latvians, Lithuanians, and Estonians that joined the SS where just trying to defend their homes from the Soviet Union.

You have to remember that Stalin had just starved 3 to 6 million Ukrainians to death.
As the Germans came in to the eastern block that was part of the USSR but not in Russia yet, they found thousands of people being killed by the NKVD. In one prison they found 1,000 Ukrainians shot dead before the NKVD left. In one town the Germans found the Ukrainians killing any Russian sympathizers by throwing them out of windows. The Ukrainians would also kill Jews because the Jews where pro communist.

In every one of those countries the Russians would go in and kill the people who owned farm land. They would then deport people from that area to the gulag and replace them with Russians. This is why the eastern part of Ukraine is very pro Russian.
It's sad how this history lesson keeps having to get repeated over, and over, and over and over. But instead of erroneously saying "the Russians did it" you might as well take it over to the thread about Darwin where it might also fit.

To say that the communists killed on the basis of race shows a fundamental lack of understanding of the entire Marx-Leninist system. They killed by class and political orientation. Nazis killed primarily but not exclusively according to race and ethnicity.

Because history shows that Stalin, an apostate anti-christian Georgian, killed more Russians than Hitler and Genghis Khan. Along with all the other groups you mentioned. Before him, Lenin relied on his band of Old Bolsheviks who were overrepresented by apostate jews, who gleefully killed Russians and any other ethnic group they wanted without any trial or even reason, with Lenin telling the Cheka squads that if a thousand bodies were not in the ditch in some village, the Chekists themselves would be the corpses which made up the difference. So they tended to be enthusiastic.

Only the ignorant think that the Soviet Union was a Russian empire. The Soviet Union was a union of slave republics, held together by a multi-ethnic nomenklatura of monsters, whose common bond was not Russian ethnicity, but rather shared inhumanity and dedication to upholding their own power within the framework of the Soviet System.

edit: the Nazis themselves were more of the same. And the SS were Hitler's ideological equivalent of the Cheka or NKVD. Apostate haters of man and God, their ideological purpose was to purify the human race through natural selection, with themselves assuming that they were the select.
 
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Here's a link to the civilian kia video, your link above doesn't work anymore.

 
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Here's a link to the civilian kia video, your link above doesn't work anymore.


as post 4276 shows
it's better to have an old gun then no gun. If word spreads across Ukraine, you'll see more people fighting to the death, since they'll know the Russians are going to kill you anyways.
 
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Sitrep from another analyst that frequents The Saker. I'm sure the Neocons will rant about it. But if you want to read what the non-Ukie-homers are thinking, here it is.

Sitrep: Operation Z​

30501 ViewsApril 02, 2022
By Nightvision for the Saker Blog
What can we expect next?
The most likely immediate repositionings will be as follows:
-The VDV forces in the Kiev east bank (western side) region and Guards Tank Army forces in Chernuhiv region will likely be redeployed to the Izyum axis, as some of them are already and have been doing for days. It’s most convenient to do this as they stay in the same general northern front region, and many of the units are from the same military groupings: for instance the Western Military District’s elite 1st Guards Tank Army, which as I understand it was the main force behind the thrusts in the east of Kiev, the Sumy – Okhtyrka – to Brovary line, will likely move to reinforce the Izyum offensive since the 6th CAA that’s reportedly operating there is also from the ‘Western Military District’ under the same command, so these units will likely consolidate by district.
Meanwhile in the south, the units operating on the western side of Mariupol all appear to be from the famed 58th army from Vladikavkaz of the Southern Military District and will likely join their brethren in the Zaporizhzhia direction where other elements of the 58th are advancing — once Mariupol is freed up. Since those Mariupol units are not under the same sub-command as the Kherson groupings, I can assume they won’t be redeployed in the Kherson direction after the fall of Mariupol but rather towards the push that’s currently happening around Velyka Novosilka that I reported on last time.
I’ve commented recently that the specific TOEs and OOBs were hard to follow since the demise of Dragon-First-1, the famed Russian cartographer who was reportedly asked by the Kremlin several weeks ago to stop making his maps as they were OVERLY detailed and showed Russian/Ukie troop dispositions a little too well for their comfort. But now other western OSINT experts have taken up the mantle. One such U.S. military expert has created a brand new interactive map that shows unit dispositions all over the country. Of course it demands the usual caveats, being from an anti-Russian source, BUT it can give us a few useful pieces of information.

The most significant of these is that, I have counted every single brigade and BTG listed on the map and have come out with a startling find that correlates exactly with what I’ve been saying for a while, and have written in detail about in the last report. Namely: there appears to be only about 50-60 total Russian BTGs in Ukraine. Considering that a Russian BTG is listed as having an estimated 600-800 men, this would amount to 50,000 – 60,000 troops in total deployment. The author himself has stated these are all the confirmed groups in the country. You can check for yourself, every unit is listed typically as either regiment or brigade. A regiment is supposed to have around 1,000 men. A Russian brigade is typically composed of 2 BTGs but on the map if you click each ‘brigade’ the exact disposition is given, and many of them say 1 BTG while others are 2 BTG. And yes, the ‘expert’ behind this new map has stated that he believes Russian total BTGs is much less than was advertised, and he is a fully pro-western ‘analyst’. He believes Russia originally started with maybe in the ~80 BTGs range, but of course conveniently he never managed to track any of those missing 30 or so, and in fact attributes them to having been destroyed, since the current operative ‘narrative’ amongst the completely lost western “OSINT armchair analyst” crowd is that Russia has lost 20-30 BTGs – an extrapolation of the laughably inflated “official figures” from Kiev that list Russian losses as 30,000 KIA, etc. Like I said, it’s quite convenient that those ‘destroyed’ phantom BTGs were in fact never tracked or witnessed in theater by the experts, and the ones that ARE being tracked just so perfectly happen to fall into the 50 BTG range.
What’s interesting is that, prior to the onset of a major propaganda campaign on the eve of the military operation, when the CIA had to go into full fear-mongering mode, even sources like CNN were reporting the following last year: “In April and September this year, Russia pulled than 50 battalion tactical groups to our borders. Currently, 41 battalion tactical groups are in combat readiness around Ukraine and in the temporarily occupied Crimea. Of these, 33 stay on a permanent basis and eight have been additionally transferred to Crimea.”
This sounds remarkably similar to the troop disposition the military experts tracking every single unit in the theater are seeing. It seems the much vaunted “180 BTGs” bogeyman was all hype and propaganda.
More and more experts are now starting to backtrack and also opine that Russia might be using way less forces than initially suspected. It seems western experts will be doing a lot of face-saving and backtracking in the coming days as they realize that Russia still has lots of reinforcements left to inject into the various fronts. And by all accounts it has been doing so for days, as plenty new videos show:


I’ve stated before that the U.S. has a major incentive in grossly inflating Russian BTG numbers so that the narrative of Russia expending all its forces and failing its objectives can be preserved.
-Here’s a new map showing the progress in Izyum. As reinforcements arrive here, we will likely see a two pronged attack both in the direction of Barinkove to the SW and Slavyansk in the SE. Today Ukr officially reported the complete loss of the south bank of Izyum, but they continue to bring reinforcements to this key battle and it is said that this will soon be the single biggest battle of all the current fronts as major forces are accumulating on both sides.
word-image.jpeg

-Also, a report today has stated that:🇷🇺🇺🇦⚡⚡Intelligence of the United States and Britain transmitted data to the Office of the President of Ukraine that the second stage of the Russian military campaign will begin within a week. Pentagon military analysts are confident that the attack on Nikolaev will begin simultaneously with the encirclement of the eastern front.”
This seems likely because Mariupol may fall in that time, particularly because another report from the UKR side stated that Mariupol was now certain to fall in a matter of days

and that pretty much the remaining forces have now retreated into the industrial areas or are pushed completely to the sea. New videos appear to attest to this as numerous missile strikes were recorded on the various industrial areas where Azov remnants are holed up:

“Our source in the OP said that the Mariupol Defense Command informed the General Staff about the complete loss of control over the city, except for the industrial area, the Azovstal plant and the port.”
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2 current maps:
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And 2 more detailed/zoomed in:
Other reports state: “The General Staff is transferring 15,000 troops from near Kyiv to the Dnieper to reinforce the eastern front. The special forces of the AFU and SSU were sent to Donbas yesterday. So its ~50.000 in Donbass, 40.000 were moved to dnepr + another 15000.”
The question is of course how proficiently will Kiev be able to transport the 15,000 reinforcements who have almost no types of military transports or armor left. It will likely be done in trickle fashion in civilians vehicles, ambulances, and DHL delivery trucks. Also, these reinforcements will likely not be able to get to the actual contact line of the Donbass, as Saker has mentioned numerous times that no man’s land is under a lot of heavy fire control and Russian air oversight. But they will likely mount 2nd and 3rd echelon defensive positions and reserves around the Dnieper, i.e. around Pavlograd area, and will be used as reserves for forces defending against Russia’s upcoming thrust from Izyum south-ward towards Barinkove, which will be the main northern ‘pincer’ to enclose the cauldron.
Onto a few other important updates.
-One of the big stories today is the infamous ‘maternity ward girl’ has in fact come forward. Named Marianne, it turns out she’s from the Donbass and has completely refuted the Ukrop propaganda. She states in her interview that not only was the maternity not “bombed” by any planes like the fakenews contends (it was “shelled”), but she recounts how Ukrop military stormed the maternity ward, stole all the patients’ food even after she told them they were for the pregnant women, didn’t tell anyone of any attacks and after the “attack”, conveniently the Ukrop soldiers appeared only minutes later already towing western photojournalists and basically used her as a “prop” despite her crying and repeatedly telling them to stop taking photos. In short, it appeared to be a rehearsed psyop event where the photographers were already waiting in the wings for the aftermath, and the pregnant showpiece was perfectly utilized as an object of orchestrated propaganda.
Her subtitled interview can be seen here:
Quick summary from a telegram channel:
“Marianne says that there was no air raid:
“That is, our opinion was confirmed. They said it was a shell [of the Armed Forces].”
The woman says that after the start of the Russian special operation, she was unable to leave Mariupol – the authorities did not let people out.
According to the story of the blogger, the maternity hospital was occupied by the fighters of the Armed Forces of Ukraine:
“The military did not help in any way, they came one day and said: “Give me food.” They are told: “This is all for pregnant women.” And they took our food.”
Marianne confirmed that reporters showed up at the scene immediately after the explosion. When everyone was evacuated, she noticed that she was being filmed and asked to stop. The journalist left only after the men chased him away.”

Of course after shamelessly using her as a propaganda tool against her will, the Ukrainian twittersphere is now doing damage control, saying that she’s a ‘Russian POW’ and is being made to lie on camera.
-In other news: The West continues to pump out nonstop fake psyops about dead/fired/sacked/missing Russian generals, heart attacks, Putin enraged at being “misled” and all sorts of inventive cartoonish bottom of the barrel stuff. However, interestingly enough, it seems they are merely projecting what is in fact happening in their own tumultuous countries. Not only has Zelensky announced the firing of two traitor generals:
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/zelenskyy-traitors-ukraine-war_n_6246c239e4b0587dee681a56
As this analyst said: @Tom_Fowdy 1h
Why should Zelensky fire two generals if Ukraine are winning? If this happened in Moscow the mainstream media would be parading it from a megaphone and saying it was evidence of an imminent collapse of Putin’s government.
But signs of disunity and cracks in the so-called ‘solid’ western ‘unity’ continue to appear:
https://www.fvd.nl/fvd-denounces-th...to-address-the-dutch-house-of-representatives
FVD denounces the invitation of President Zelensky to address the Dutch House of Representatives.
FVD denounces the invitation of President Zelensky to address the Dutch House of Representatives and will be absent during his speech and from the ensuing parliamentary debate”
“Zelensky’s planned speech to the Dutch House of Representatives represents a radical break with a democratic tradition that has existed for over 170 years. Never before in the history of Dutch democracy has a foreign head of state spoken in the House of Representatives.
There is a good reason for this: democratic decision-making in the Dutch parliament should be entirely independent, shielded from foreign influence and unhindered by foreign interests.”

And a new poll in Turkey asks who is to blame for the Ukraine crisis?
33.7% of Turks said Russians
48.3% said NATO
7.5% said Ukraine
So 55% believe Ukraine/NATO are to blame with only 33% blaming Russia.

-On a related note, after getting decimated by Russian strikes in western Ukraine earlier in the month, the ‘Foreign Legion’ of Ukraine is no longer operating.
https://www.rt.com/news/553137-ukraine-stops-foreign-legion-recruitment/
Of course, keep in mind Russia’s official figures are that at least 180 foreign mercenaries were killed in that one strike near Lyvov alone, and 600+ foreign mercenaries total have been eliminated in the operation so far.
America itself continues to experience recruiting problems – it seems no one wants to join the army anymore and the U.S. has been forced to admit that they’re no longer able to hit recruitment goals.
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/army-proposes-cut-troop-levels-under-1-million-first-time-20-years
https://www.defenseone.com/policy/2022/03/about-face-army-expects-shrink-next-year/363878/
word-image-4.jpeg

Meanwhile U.S. training standards continue to plummet as high profile crash after crash occur on a regular basis. Yesterday an important Navy intelligence E-2D plane crashed off the coast of Virginia with at least one confirmed fatality. And I’ve recently highlighted how an F-22 just crashed in Eglin base in Florida last week, while only two weeks prior the F-35 that crashed in the South China Sea was finally dredged up, a U.S. Marine Osprey crashed during NATO exercises this month, killing 4-5, while a Navy F-18 also crashed two weeks ago in North Carolina.
-Some bad news I have to report. A Ukrainian reporter who visited the UKR base near Kharkov where the torture of Russian POWs occurred was said to find the remains of several charred bodies. This likely means that not only did the Ukrops torture and kill the one confirmed POW who was stabbed on video, but they likely disposed of the rest of them by burning them to death.
https://theintercept.com/2022/03/31...nds-charred-remains-alleged-war-crime-filmed/
“On Monday, a well-known Ukrainian journalist, Yuri Butusov, published graphic video showing the charred remains of three men he identified as Russian soldiers, as Ukrainian forces recaptured the town of Malaya Rohan, outside Kharkiv, over the weekend.”
Here is the interesting response from this Ukrainian “journalist” at the bottom of the article:
Update: April 1, 2022
Yuri Butusov, the editor of the Ukrainian news site Censor.net, has not yet responded to questions from The Intercept about the video he recorded in Malaya Rohan this week. On Friday, however, Butusov published an opinion article on his website in which he argued that “The Geneva Convention does not apply to detained Russian servicemen in Ukraine.”
Ukraine is not obliged to take care of them and provide Red Cross access to them, since Putin did not declare war on Ukraine,” Butusov argued. The journalist, who created a stir in Ukraine a week before the Russian invasion by assaulting a pro-Russia politician during a live television debate, added that, in his view, “the Russians are not legally prisoners of war, but are terrorists.”
Secondly, I reported in an earlier article that Vladimir Shamanov, head of a Duma defense committee (and ex-general of great renown from the Chechen wars), had stated that the perpetrators of Russian POW tortures were “captured” by Spetsnaz. But in fact only a day later, two of the men he named, one nicknamed ‘Chile’, made a video from inside Kharkov mocking the politician and showing that they are quite alive and not captured.
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If true, this is obviously a big embarrassment for Shamanov and the Russian political elite. Analysts on Telegram have debated whether he was fed wrong info or he himself decided to make the outrageous claim, we may never know, but it is very disappointing and shows that there is still some grave incompetence and corruption that at times hampers the Russian operation. Of course most of us doubted his announcement without video/photo proof of the captured perpetrators anyway.
-One last word for now on upcoming events. Many ‘analysts’ are predicting a long, very difficult road ahead in the Phase 2 clash for the Donbass Cauldron. Everyone knows that UKR forces are heavily entrenched along the contact line from Kramatorsk down to Donetsk and so far the advances have been slow on this account – and as such, many people assume they will continue to be slow. I believe they will be much faster than most people think, but only if the amount of reinforcements arrive that I hope will be the case. Kiev too is sending reinforcements but they will not be of the ‘entrenched’ variety and most of them will likely serve as reserves in the rearguard, and for the battles at Izyum etc.
As I said elsewhere, advances have been slow against the main entrenched line because that line has not yet been flanked or encircled, it is only being attacked head-on by DPR forces west and north of Donetsk city, in the areas of Kamyanka, Verkhnotoretske, etc. But keep in mind, Russian forces have advanced to within a very close proximity of that main entrenched line. They are just south of the N15 highway where they stand to assault the Marinka – Kurakhove line from the south. Once that line is broken with reinforcements, then the main trench system and first echelon defense of the Ukrops will be flanked and under fire control from flanks and rears. This will lead to a multiplication factor of force which will cause their rapid collapse in a snowballing fashion, because for the first time in the conflict they will be hit from multiple sides, supply and retreat lines cut, etc. Remember, if that new interactive unit map I included at the top is accurate, the Russian force disposition in Zaporizhzhia around the southern contact line of the cauldron is extremely low. There appears to be only 3 motorized rifle regiments of about 5 BTGs total (as low as ~3200 troops) and a tank regiment of only 2 BTGs. This would be in the area of ~5000 total troops, which seems extremely low but even if you double that, as a precaution, that’s still extremely low for that entire huge front. That would basically be half a division to one very small division holding and advancing on an area that’s something like 15,000km2. So imagine what will happen once Mariupol frees up and (hopefully) other reinforcements are injected to the tune of at least another 15-30k. This would absolutely break the spine of Ukrainian defenses on this southern front of the cauldron. If 10k troops were gaining steadily around Velyka Novosilka and north of Volnovakha, then double or triple that amount should smash everything in their path.
And the other thing is, Russia might have had trouble in heavily urbanized regions like Kiev and its outskirts (which are heavily suburbanized) because not only does it create very narrow killzones where mechanized squads are sitting ducks, but Russia seemed to greatly limit its airpower for fear of hitting all the un-evacuated homes everywhere. This made it extremely difficult to fight. But in the Donbass region, where it’s comparatively de-urbanized, mostly huge expanses of flat fields, farmland, small villages, it will play to all of Russia’s strengths – whereas the Kiev regions played completely to Ukraine’s strength, not only the heavily suburbanized areas but most of the region is heavily forested as well, which allowed the ‘partisan’ and guerilla tactics of the Ukrops to be much more successful than in the lower Donbass region of flat farmlands.
So I will stick my neck out and predict that the cauldron collapse will be more rapid than people expect now that Russia has made the decision to focus everything onto it. The troops are really chomping at the bit, attacks on their homeland (Belgorod), and the torture of POWs has boiled their blood. Reports from the frontlines of a soldier in Izyum continue to indicate they are ready and excited for a massive battle to crush the Ukrop cauldron (and the spirits/morale is high as well). And you’ve already seen the Chechens and their unprecedented morale and spirits – what will happen after Mariupol falls and those Chechens are loosed onto the southern front of the cauldron? I pity the Ukrops for what is coming.
I leave you with some Mariupol combat footage:
 
Food for thought.

They show dead civilians, exactly who killed them, russkies or ukrainians ?
I think only the dead really know.
Some rough shit going down from both sides.....but, it is war.
 
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Nice collection though throwing 70y old grenades around might be detrimental to your health...


Someone is about to get lucky, liberating ladies...

Raised from the dead first rasing hand then check the rear mirror:


Arm lifted as they drove up
 
This was on MSM site here is Slovenia as "Srebrenica II" and yet none of the rabid commentators noticed corpses giving "thumbs up" after being liberated by their own.... Jst imagine the level of ignorance and mass psychosis that causes people to root for a war while being ignorant that even evident propaganda is unnoticed...
 
CEO of Germany's multinational BASF SE, the world's largest chemical producer, has warned that curbing or cutting off energy imports from Russia would bring into doubt the continued existence of small and medium-sized energy companies, and further would likely spiral Germany into its most "catastrophic" economic crisis going back to the end of World War 2.

 
CEO of Germany's multinational BASF SE, the world's largest chemical producer, has warned that curbing or cutting off energy imports from Russia would bring into doubt the continued existence of small and medium-sized energy companies, and further would likely spiral Germany into its most "catastrophic" economic crisis going back to the end of World War 2.


I buy plastics now for a living.

There is one grade of plastic I have been trying to buy that is a BASF product......no bueno.

It is a glass filled fire rated material for auto parts.

Expect the fallout to be wide ranging.
 
I buy plastics now for a living.

There is one grade of plastic I have been trying to buy that is a BASF product......no bueno.

It is a glass filled fire rated material for auto parts.

Expect the fallout to be wide ranging.
I have friends / family working for BASF..... In the chemical industry, everything is connected... Ripple effect will be world wide.

The three BASF sites employ nearly 2,000 employees and contractors and invest nearly $300 million in the state through annual payroll, purchases, taxes and charitable contributions. BASF in Louisiana is committed to being a great place to work and an exemplary community partner.

 
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BASF owned a fiber plant here. We called it the Big Ass String Factory.
They were probably the biggest employer in the area. Then it was furniture. Now that's mostly in china.
 
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Sitrep from another analyst that frequents The Saker. I'm sure the Neocons will rant about it. But if you want to read what the non-Ukie-homers are thinking, here it is.

Sitrep: Operation Z​

30501 ViewsApril 02, 2022
By Nightvision for the Saker Blog
What can we expect next?
The most likely immediate repositionings will be as follows:
-The VDV forces in the Kiev east bank (western side) region and Guards Tank Army forces in Chernuhiv region will likely be redeployed to the Izyum axis, as some of them are already and have been doing for days. It’s most convenient to do this as they stay in the same general northern front region, and many of the units are from the same military groupings: for instance the Western Military District’s elite 1st Guards Tank Army, which as I understand it was the main force behind the thrusts in the east of Kiev, the Sumy – Okhtyrka – to Brovary line, will likely move to reinforce the Izyum offensive since the 6th CAA that’s reportedly operating there is also from the ‘Western Military District’ under the same command, so these units will likely consolidate by district.
Meanwhile in the south, the units operating on the western side of Mariupol all appear to be from the famed 58th army from Vladikavkaz of the Southern Military District and will likely join their brethren in the Zaporizhzhia direction where other elements of the 58th are advancing — once Mariupol is freed up. Since those Mariupol units are not under the same sub-command as the Kherson groupings, I can assume they won’t be redeployed in the Kherson direction after the fall of Mariupol but rather towards the push that’s currently happening around Velyka Novosilka that I reported on last time.
I’ve commented recently that the specific TOEs and OOBs were hard to follow since the demise of Dragon-First-1, the famed Russian cartographer who was reportedly asked by the Kremlin several weeks ago to stop making his maps as they were OVERLY detailed and showed Russian/Ukie troop dispositions a little too well for their comfort. But now other western OSINT experts have taken up the mantle. One such U.S. military expert has created a brand new interactive map that shows unit dispositions all over the country. Of course it demands the usual caveats, being from an anti-Russian source, BUT it can give us a few useful pieces of information.

The most significant of these is that, I have counted every single brigade and BTG listed on the map and have come out with a startling find that correlates exactly with what I’ve been saying for a while, and have written in detail about in the last report. Namely: there appears to be only about 50-60 total Russian BTGs in Ukraine. Considering that a Russian BTG is listed as having an estimated 600-800 men, this would amount to 50,000 – 60,000 troops in total deployment. The author himself has stated these are all the confirmed groups in the country. You can check for yourself, every unit is listed typically as either regiment or brigade. A regiment is supposed to have around 1,000 men. A Russian brigade is typically composed of 2 BTGs but on the map if you click each ‘brigade’ the exact disposition is given, and many of them say 1 BTG while others are 2 BTG. And yes, the ‘expert’ behind this new map has stated that he believes Russian total BTGs is much less than was advertised, and he is a fully pro-western ‘analyst’. He believes Russia originally started with maybe in the ~80 BTGs range, but of course conveniently he never managed to track any of those missing 30 or so, and in fact attributes them to having been destroyed, since the current operative ‘narrative’ amongst the completely lost western “OSINT armchair analyst” crowd is that Russia has lost 20-30 BTGs – an extrapolation of the laughably inflated “official figures” from Kiev that list Russian losses as 30,000 KIA, etc. Like I said, it’s quite convenient that those ‘destroyed’ phantom BTGs were in fact never tracked or witnessed in theater by the experts, and the ones that ARE being tracked just so perfectly happen to fall into the 50 BTG range.
What’s interesting is that, prior to the onset of a major propaganda campaign on the eve of the military operation, when the CIA had to go into full fear-mongering mode, even sources like CNN were reporting the following last year: “In April and September this year, Russia pulled than 50 battalion tactical groups to our borders. Currently, 41 battalion tactical groups are in combat readiness around Ukraine and in the temporarily occupied Crimea. Of these, 33 stay on a permanent basis and eight have been additionally transferred to Crimea.”
This sounds remarkably similar to the troop disposition the military experts tracking every single unit in the theater are seeing. It seems the much vaunted “180 BTGs” bogeyman was all hype and propaganda.
More and more experts are now starting to backtrack and also opine that Russia might be using way less forces than initially suspected. It seems western experts will be doing a lot of face-saving and backtracking in the coming days as they realize that Russia still has lots of reinforcements left to inject into the various fronts. And by all accounts it has been doing so for days, as plenty new videos show:


I’ve stated before that the U.S. has a major incentive in grossly inflating Russian BTG numbers so that the narrative of Russia expending all its forces and failing its objectives can be preserved.
-Here’s a new map showing the progress in Izyum. As reinforcements arrive here, we will likely see a two pronged attack both in the direction of Barinkove to the SW and Slavyansk in the SE. Today Ukr officially reported the complete loss of the south bank of Izyum, but they continue to bring reinforcements to this key battle and it is said that this will soon be the single biggest battle of all the current fronts as major forces are accumulating on both sides.
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-Also, a report today has stated that:🇷🇺🇺🇦⚡⚡Intelligence of the United States and Britain transmitted data to the Office of the President of Ukraine that the second stage of the Russian military campaign will begin within a week. Pentagon military analysts are confident that the attack on Nikolaev will begin simultaneously with the encirclement of the eastern front.”
This seems likely because Mariupol may fall in that time, particularly because another report from the UKR side stated that Mariupol was now certain to fall in a matter of days

and that pretty much the remaining forces have now retreated into the industrial areas or are pushed completely to the sea. New videos appear to attest to this as numerous missile strikes were recorded on the various industrial areas where Azov remnants are holed up:

“Our source in the OP said that the Mariupol Defense Command informed the General Staff about the complete loss of control over the city, except for the industrial area, the Azovstal plant and the port.”
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2 current maps:
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And 2 more detailed/zoomed in:
Other reports state: “The General Staff is transferring 15,000 troops from near Kyiv to the Dnieper to reinforce the eastern front. The special forces of the AFU and SSU were sent to Donbas yesterday. So its ~50.000 in Donbass, 40.000 were moved to dnepr + another 15000.”
The question is of course how proficiently will Kiev be able to transport the 15,000 reinforcements who have almost no types of military transports or armor left. It will likely be done in trickle fashion in civilians vehicles, ambulances, and DHL delivery trucks. Also, these reinforcements will likely not be able to get to the actual contact line of the Donbass, as Saker has mentioned numerous times that no man’s land is under a lot of heavy fire control and Russian air oversight. But they will likely mount 2nd and 3rd echelon defensive positions and reserves around the Dnieper, i.e. around Pavlograd area, and will be used as reserves for forces defending against Russia’s upcoming thrust from Izyum south-ward towards Barinkove, which will be the main northern ‘pincer’ to enclose the cauldron.
Onto a few other important updates.
-One of the big stories today is the infamous ‘maternity ward girl’ has in fact come forward. Named Marianne, it turns out she’s from the Donbass and has completely refuted the Ukrop propaganda. She states in her interview that not only was the maternity not “bombed” by any planes like the fakenews contends (it was “shelled”), but she recounts how Ukrop military stormed the maternity ward, stole all the patients’ food even after she told them they were for the pregnant women, didn’t tell anyone of any attacks and after the “attack”, conveniently the Ukrop soldiers appeared only minutes later already towing western photojournalists and basically used her as a “prop” despite her crying and repeatedly telling them to stop taking photos. In short, it appeared to be a rehearsed psyop event where the photographers were already waiting in the wings for the aftermath, and the pregnant showpiece was perfectly utilized as an object of orchestrated propaganda.
Her subtitled interview can be seen here:
Quick summary from a telegram channel:
“Marianne says that there was no air raid:
“That is, our opinion was confirmed. They said it was a shell [of the Armed Forces].”
The woman says that after the start of the Russian special operation, she was unable to leave Mariupol – the authorities did not let people out.
According to the story of the blogger, the maternity hospital was occupied by the fighters of the Armed Forces of Ukraine:
“The military did not help in any way, they came one day and said: “Give me food.” They are told: “This is all for pregnant women.” And they took our food.”
Marianne confirmed that reporters showed up at the scene immediately after the explosion. When everyone was evacuated, she noticed that she was being filmed and asked to stop. The journalist left only after the men chased him away.”

Of course after shamelessly using her as a propaganda tool against her will, the Ukrainian twittersphere is now doing damage control, saying that she’s a ‘Russian POW’ and is being made to lie on camera.
-In other news: The West continues to pump out nonstop fake psyops about dead/fired/sacked/missing Russian generals, heart attacks, Putin enraged at being “misled” and all sorts of inventive cartoonish bottom of the barrel stuff. However, interestingly enough, it seems they are merely projecting what is in fact happening in their own tumultuous countries. Not only has Zelensky announced the firing of two traitor generals:
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/zelenskyy-traitors-ukraine-war_n_6246c239e4b0587dee681a56
As this analyst said: @Tom_Fowdy 1h
Why should Zelensky fire two generals if Ukraine are winning? If this happened in Moscow the mainstream media would be parading it from a megaphone and saying it was evidence of an imminent collapse of Putin’s government.
But signs of disunity and cracks in the so-called ‘solid’ western ‘unity’ continue to appear:
https://www.fvd.nl/fvd-denounces-th...to-address-the-dutch-house-of-representatives
FVD denounces the invitation of President Zelensky to address the Dutch House of Representatives.
FVD denounces the invitation of President Zelensky to address the Dutch House of Representatives and will be absent during his speech and from the ensuing parliamentary debate”
“Zelensky’s planned speech to the Dutch House of Representatives represents a radical break with a democratic tradition that has existed for over 170 years. Never before in the history of Dutch democracy has a foreign head of state spoken in the House of Representatives.
There is a good reason for this: democratic decision-making in the Dutch parliament should be entirely independent, shielded from foreign influence and unhindered by foreign interests.”

And a new poll in Turkey asks who is to blame for the Ukraine crisis?
33.7% of Turks said Russians
48.3% said NATO
7.5% said Ukraine
So 55% believe Ukraine/NATO are to blame with only 33% blaming Russia.

-On a related note, after getting decimated by Russian strikes in western Ukraine earlier in the month, the ‘Foreign Legion’ of Ukraine is no longer operating.
https://www.rt.com/news/553137-ukraine-stops-foreign-legion-recruitment/
Of course, keep in mind Russia’s official figures are that at least 180 foreign mercenaries were killed in that one strike near Lyvov alone, and 600+ foreign mercenaries total have been eliminated in the operation so far.
America itself continues to experience recruiting problems – it seems no one wants to join the army anymore and the U.S. has been forced to admit that they’re no longer able to hit recruitment goals.
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/army-proposes-cut-troop-levels-under-1-million-first-time-20-years
https://www.defenseone.com/policy/2022/03/about-face-army-expects-shrink-next-year/363878/
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Meanwhile U.S. training standards continue to plummet as high profile crash after crash occur on a regular basis. Yesterday an important Navy intelligence E-2D plane crashed off the coast of Virginia with at least one confirmed fatality. And I’ve recently highlighted how an F-22 just crashed in Eglin base in Florida last week, while only two weeks prior the F-35 that crashed in the South China Sea was finally dredged up, a U.S. Marine Osprey crashed during NATO exercises this month, killing 4-5, while a Navy F-18 also crashed two weeks ago in North Carolina.
-Some bad news I have to report. A Ukrainian reporter who visited the UKR base near Kharkov where the torture of Russian POWs occurred was said to find the remains of several charred bodies. This likely means that not only did the Ukrops torture and kill the one confirmed POW who was stabbed on video, but they likely disposed of the rest of them by burning them to death.
https://theintercept.com/2022/03/31...nds-charred-remains-alleged-war-crime-filmed/
“On Monday, a well-known Ukrainian journalist, Yuri Butusov, published graphic video showing the charred remains of three men he identified as Russian soldiers, as Ukrainian forces recaptured the town of Malaya Rohan, outside Kharkiv, over the weekend.”
Here is the interesting response from this Ukrainian “journalist” at the bottom of the article:
Update: April 1, 2022
Yuri Butusov, the editor of the Ukrainian news site Censor.net, has not yet responded to questions from The Intercept about the video he recorded in Malaya Rohan this week. On Friday, however, Butusov published an opinion article on his website in which he argued that “The Geneva Convention does not apply to detained Russian servicemen in Ukraine.”
Ukraine is not obliged to take care of them and provide Red Cross access to them, since Putin did not declare war on Ukraine,” Butusov argued. The journalist, who created a stir in Ukraine a week before the Russian invasion by assaulting a pro-Russia politician during a live television debate, added that, in his view, “the Russians are not legally prisoners of war, but are terrorists.”
Secondly, I reported in an earlier article that Vladimir Shamanov, head of a Duma defense committee (and ex-general of great renown from the Chechen wars), had stated that the perpetrators of Russian POW tortures were “captured” by Spetsnaz. But in fact only a day later, two of the men he named, one nicknamed ‘Chile’, made a video from inside Kharkov mocking the politician and showing that they are quite alive and not captured.
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If true, this is obviously a big embarrassment for Shamanov and the Russian political elite. Analysts on Telegram have debated whether he was fed wrong info or he himself decided to make the outrageous claim, we may never know, but it is very disappointing and shows that there is still some grave incompetence and corruption that at times hampers the Russian operation. Of course most of us doubted his announcement without video/photo proof of the captured perpetrators anyway.
-One last word for now on upcoming events. Many ‘analysts’ are predicting a long, very difficult road ahead in the Phase 2 clash for the Donbass Cauldron. Everyone knows that UKR forces are heavily entrenched along the contact line from Kramatorsk down to Donetsk and so far the advances have been slow on this account – and as such, many people assume they will continue to be slow. I believe they will be much faster than most people think, but only if the amount of reinforcements arrive that I hope will be the case. Kiev too is sending reinforcements but they will not be of the ‘entrenched’ variety and most of them will likely serve as reserves in the rearguard, and for the battles at Izyum etc.
As I said elsewhere, advances have been slow against the main entrenched line because that line has not yet been flanked or encircled, it is only being attacked head-on by DPR forces west and north of Donetsk city, in the areas of Kamyanka, Verkhnotoretske, etc. But keep in mind, Russian forces have advanced to within a very close proximity of that main entrenched line. They are just south of the N15 highway where they stand to assault the Marinka – Kurakhove line from the south. Once that line is broken with reinforcements, then the main trench system and first echelon defense of the Ukrops will be flanked and under fire control from flanks and rears. This will lead to a multiplication factor of force which will cause their rapid collapse in a snowballing fashion, because for the first time in the conflict they will be hit from multiple sides, supply and retreat lines cut, etc. Remember, if that new interactive unit map I included at the top is accurate, the Russian force disposition in Zaporizhzhia around the southern contact line of the cauldron is extremely low. There appears to be only 3 motorized rifle regiments of about 5 BTGs total (as low as ~3200 troops) and a tank regiment of only 2 BTGs. This would be in the area of ~5000 total troops, which seems extremely low but even if you double that, as a precaution, that’s still extremely low for that entire huge front. That would basically be half a division to one very small division holding and advancing on an area that’s something like 15,000km2. So imagine what will happen once Mariupol frees up and (hopefully) other reinforcements are injected to the tune of at least another 15-30k. This would absolutely break the spine of Ukrainian defenses on this southern front of the cauldron. If 10k troops were gaining steadily around Velyka Novosilka and north of Volnovakha, then double or triple that amount should smash everything in their path.
And the other thing is, Russia might have had trouble in heavily urbanized regions like Kiev and its outskirts (which are heavily suburbanized) because not only does it create very narrow killzones where mechanized squads are sitting ducks, but Russia seemed to greatly limit its airpower for fear of hitting all the un-evacuated homes everywhere. This made it extremely difficult to fight. But in the Donbass region, where it’s comparatively de-urbanized, mostly huge expanses of flat fields, farmland, small villages, it will play to all of Russia’s strengths – whereas the Kiev regions played completely to Ukraine’s strength, not only the heavily suburbanized areas but most of the region is heavily forested as well, which allowed the ‘partisan’ and guerilla tactics of the Ukrops to be much more successful than in the lower Donbass region of flat farmlands.
So I will stick my neck out and predict that the cauldron collapse will be more rapid than people expect now that Russia has made the decision to focus everything onto it. The troops are really chomping at the bit, attacks on their homeland (Belgorod), and the torture of POWs has boiled their blood. Reports from the frontlines of a soldier in Izyum continue to indicate they are ready and excited for a massive battle to crush the Ukrop cauldron (and the spirits/morale is high as well). And you’ve already seen the Chechens and their unprecedented morale and spirits – what will happen after Mariupol falls and those Chechens are loosed onto the southern front of the cauldron? I pity the Ukrops for what is coming.
I leave you with some Mariupol combat footage:

I missed these two crashes. The F-22 appears it was nose gear failure though (from one article anyway). But this is more troubling:



However, that's two F-22s lost at Eglin.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...shap-landing-eglin-air-force-base/7129855001/
 
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I missed these two crashes. The F-22 appears it was nose gear failure though (from one article anyway). But this is more troubling:



However, that's two F-22s lost at Eglin.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...shap-landing-eglin-air-force-base/7129855001/
Two since 2018... One crashed in the whole airframe was lost, the one with the gear mishap will be repaired

Modern jets are a hell of a lot safer than they used to be. The F 35 for instance is one of the safest if not the safest fighter jet ever built as far as flight hours to people killed in them.
 
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110% this.......

When you dig deep enough, pretty much all the wars have been this way.
the afghan papers proved that the military knew all along it was a shitshow...and they were making zero progress.
it is no surprise it all collapsed immediately.
 
Diesel in some European countries is already more expensive than cooking oil , so officials are issuing warnings to folks not to use cooking oil as modern engines don't tolerate it that well. But if you run some old diesel no problem mixing it in .

50fc68725ddd6027a9d9.jpeg
 
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I missed these two crashes. The F-22 appears it was nose gear failure though (from one article anyway). But this is more troubling:



However, that's two F-22s lost at Eglin.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...shap-landing-eglin-air-force-base/7129855001/
why?????
 
My cousin’s father in law who was conscripted to serve earlier this years died 3 weeks ago (found out last week). He was killed in Donetsk (I believe, it was eastern Ukraine) when the Russians shelled their position. His battalion was 800 people and only 8 survived per his wife
 
My cousin’s father in law who was conscripted to serve earlier this years died 3 weeks ago (found out last week). He was killed in Donetsk (I believe, it was eastern Ukraine) when the Russians shelled their position. His battalion was 800 people and only 8 survived per his wife
one thing russia does well is artillery
 
Is anyone else following this closely?
The speed and disorganization of the Russian retreat out of the areas around Kiev is astounding.
They are moving so fast that entire units are being left behind to be cutoff and encircled. Three major defensive positions encircled and wiped out in a matter of 36 hours.
 
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Is anyone else following this closely?
The speed and disorganization of the Russian retreat out of the areas around Kiev is astounding.
They are moving so fast that entire units are being left behind to be cutoff and encircled. Three major defensive positions encircled and wiped out in a matter of 36 hours.
KievWood productions? Russians evacuate Bucha and on 31st, the mayor of Bucha reports no more Russian troops in Bucha no mention of bodies on the streets,then 3 days later Ukrainians roll in with Cameras and its bodies of civilians all over the place some still moving around while they slalom around them.
Considering Ukrainian troops followed the Russian pullout with considerable delay measured in days, take their reports of abandoned and encircled troops with a grain of salt. They literally waited till it was all quiet before they rolled on , to be fair they have been on receiving end of enough HE to wait for it .

In any case Bucha 'massacre' is just on time to escalate the sanctions that seemed no to be working as advertised and escalate the arms supply as emotionally challenged lawmakers pile in billions more in arms.


Meanwhile some more genuine footage of War in Ukraine
277565854_2101129646715784_8955528847611207672_n.jpg


 
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KievWood productions? Russians evacuate Bucha and on 31st, the mayor of Bucha reports no more Russian troops in Bucha no mention of bodies on the streets,then 3 days later Ukrainians roll in with Cameras and its bodies of civilians all over the place some still moving around while they slalom around them.
Considering Ukrainian troops followed the Russian pullout with considerable delay measured in days, take their reports of abandoned and encircled troops with a grain of salt. They literally waited till it was all quiet before they rolled on , to be fair they have been on receiving end of enough HE to wait for it .


Meanwhile some more genuine footage of War in Ukraine
View attachment 7842211


I've seen pics of the bodies and the bodies are already decomposing.
 
My cousin’s father in law who was conscripted to serve earlier this years died 3 weeks ago (found out last week). He was killed in Donetsk (I believe, it was eastern Ukraine) when the Russians shelled their position. His battalion was 800 people and only 8 survived per his wife

Very sorry to hear this. Wears on a soul to hear of all the unnecessary killing.

If people wouldn't blindly follow leaders funded by "the builders of cities" throughout the millennia we would not fight so much.

Who are these leaders one might ask?

All of them eventually.

Follow the money.
 
one thing russia does well is artillery
back in ww2 they called it "the Red God of War"

excerpt from Guy Sajer's book:

Our jostling and cries for help and screams of panic were finally obliterated by explosions. Everyone who was able to had run off the street. The slightest protuberance offered some hope of survival, as a wall of fire passed over the two thousand troops concentrated on that spot. The wounded, abandoned in the open, lay writhing in the dust. Through the uproar, we could hear the sound of disarticulated bodies falling back to the ground in broken pieces. As at Belgorod, the earth shook, and everything trembled and grew dim, as the whole landscape suddenly became mobile. The filthy hands of ill and wounded men resigned to death scratched the ground for one last time, and the lined faces of veterans who believed they had already seen everything were transformed by desperate, imploring panic. Quite near us, behind a heap of tiles, a Russian shell scored a bull's eye, exploding in the midst of eleven men who had huddled together like children caught in a sudden rain. The Russian shell landed in the precise center of their trembling group, mixing flesh and bones and tiles in a torrent of blood.
Chance, which continued to favor me, had driven me along with three companions to the shelter of a staircase in a roofless house. The building was hit on all sides during the bombardment, and the cellar filled with broken beams and other debris. However, thanks to our extraordinary helmets, our heads survived intact. When the thunder stopped for a moment and we heard the screams of the newly wounded, we looked outside. The horror of what we saw was so overwhelming that we fell back, as if paralyzed, onto the shaky stairs.
"God help us," someone shouted. "There's nothing but blood."
 
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KievWood productions? Russians evacuate Bucha and on 31st, the mayor of Bucha reports no more Russian troops in Bucha no mention of bodies on the streets,then 3 days later Ukrainians roll in with Cameras and its bodies of civilians all over the place some still moving around while they slalom around them.
Considering Ukrainian troops followed the Russian pullout with considerable delay measured in days, take their reports of abandoned and encircled troops with a grain of salt. They literally waited till it was all quiet before they rolled on , to be fair they have been on receiving end of enough HE to wait for it .


Meanwhile some more genuine footage of War in Ukraine
View attachment 7842211


lol, nice video game footage there!

When are they going to start with the deepfakes?
 
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