Nobody interested in the Russia-Ukraine conflict?

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^^^wasn’t this discussed waaaaay early on in this thread ?

^^^wasn’t this discussed waaaaay early on in this thread ? USA’s interest in prolonging war in Ukraine is quite simply to deplete russia’s military capabilities. Bullets bombs vehicles personnel etc the longer the war goes on the more gets spent, destroyed, killed etc and thus the weaker russia’s capacity to attack anyone else. Makes sense.

I'm a bit late to the party but turns out, as I said all along, Russia sabotaged Nord Stream.

https://www.politico.eu/article/russia- ... ore-blast/

"The US destroyed Nord Stream" is the new "COVID leaked from a lab" or "the vaccines are killing more than they saved".

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, a close ally of President Vladimir Putin, promised nuclear weapons to any nation that joined Russia and Belarus.

The comment came just days after the Belarusian leader confirmed the transfer of Russian nuclear weapons to his country. Putin has periodically hinted at a nuclear escalation since the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, dramatically increasing tensions with the United States and the West.

“It’s very simple. You have to join the union between Belarus and Russia, and that’s it: There will be nuclear weapons for everyone,” Lukashenko said in a comment aired Sunday night on Russian state TV.

“I think it’s possible,” Lukashenko added, saying that he was expressing his own view. “We need to strategically understand that we have a unique chance to unite.”

Lukashneko, who is one of the staunchest supporters of Russian President Vladimir Putin, made the comment in response to earlier remarks by President of Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev during a summit in Moscow on Wednesday.

Tokayev said at the forum of the Eurasian Economic Union in Moscow Wednesday that Belarus and Russia enjoy a close relationship where “even nuclear weapons are shared between the two.”

On Thursday, the Belarusian leader confirmed that Russia has moved on the plan to deploy tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, first announced in March.

It comes amid escalating nuclear rhetoric from Putin as his war effort in Ukraine flounders.

Meanwhile, defense ministers of the two countries, Sergei Shoigu and Viktor Khrenin, signed documents in Minsk last week, defining the procedure for keeping Russian nuclear weapons on Belarusian territory, the Russian defense ministry said.

Moscow has already handed over to Minsk the “Iskander” missile system, which can carry nuclear weapons, Shoigu said, and has assisted in converting some Belarusian aircraft for the possible nuclear weapon use.

The Defense Department is blocking efforts by the U.S. government to share evidence of possible Russian war crimes in Ukraine with the International Criminal Court, a senior U.S. diplomat told lawmakers Wednesday.

Beth Van Schaack, the State Department’s ambassador-at-large for global criminal justice, said at a hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that the Pentagon continues to hold up U.S. cooperation with the Hague court in its investigations of suspected atrocities in Ukraine.

When Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., asked Van Schaack whether it was the Pentagon that “is not cooperating in that way,” she replied: “Yes.”

The Pentagon has harbored concerns that cooperation with the International Criminal Court could lead to the prosecution of U.S. troops deployed abroad. The New York Times first reported in March the Pentagon’s reluctance to share information about Ukraine with the ICC.

The ICC opened an investigation into possible U.S. crimes in Afghanistan in 2017. The Trump administration immediately expressed outrage and imposed sanctions on the court’s prosecutor. Court officials later announced that the case against U.S forces in Afghanistan would receive lower priority.

What do you think was Russia's motivation to sabotage Nord Stream???

A Ukrainian offensive is “taking place in several directions,” Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar told Ukrainian television on Monday, heightening speculation that a major push by Kyiv to recapture land held by Russia’s occupying forces could be getting underway.

“It is not only about Bakhmut. The offensive is taking place in several directions. We are happy about every meter. Today is a successful day for our forces,” she said.

Recent weeks have seen Ukraine’s military stepping up shaping operations – attacks on Russian targets like fuel depots and weapons dumps far behind frontlines – which typically precede a major advance by ground forces. But government officials in Kyiv have been at pains to say the start of any counteroffensive would not be announced.

Both Ukraine and Russia have engaged in intense information campaigns to sway public opinion and mislead their opponents about their battle plans.

Maliar’s comments came after the Russian Defense Ministry claimed its troops resisted a “large-scale” attack from Ukrainian forces in the eastern Donetsk region. The Russian military claimed in a statement to have killed 250 Ukrainians and destroyed armored vehicles used in the assault, but provided scant evidence.

Moscow is known to make inflated claims about Ukrainian losses. CNN has been unable to independently verify the claim.

A spokesperson for the Ukraine Armed Forces, Bohdan Senyk, told CNN that Ukraine does “not have information” on a purported “large-scale offensive” in Donetsk.


A Ukrainian offensive is “taking place in several directions,” Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar told Ukrainian television on Monday, heightening speculation that a major push by Kyiv to recapture land held by Russia’s occupying forces could be getting underway.

“It is not only about Bakhmut. The offensive is taking place in several directions. We are happy about every meter. Today is a successful day for our forces,” she said.

Recent weeks have seen Ukraine’s military stepping up shaping operations – attacks on Russian targets like fuel depots and weapons dumps far behind frontlines – which typically precede a major advance by ground forces. But government officials in Kyiv have been at pains to say the start of any counteroffensive would not be announced.

Both Ukraine and Russia have engaged in intense information campaigns to sway public opinion and mislead their opponents about their battle plans.

Maliar’s comments came after the Russian Defense Ministry claimed its troops resisted a “large-scale” attack from Ukrainian forces in the eastern Donetsk region. The Russian military claimed in a statement to have killed 250 Ukrainians and destroyed armored vehicles used in the assault, but provided scant evidence.

Moscow is known to make inflated claims about Ukrainian losses. CNN has been unable to independently verify the claim.

A spokesperson for the Ukraine Armed Forces, Bohdan Senyk, told CNN that Ukraine does “not have information” on a purported “large-scale offensive” in Donetsk.

Further south, a Russian-appointed official in Zaporizhzhia said Ukrainian troops were attempting to break through a defense line to reach the coast of the Sea of Azov.

“The goal of the [Ukraine Armed Forces] militants is to reach the Azov Sea coast and cut the land corridor,” Vladimir Rogov said, according to Russian state media outlet RIA Novosti.

He claimed that Ukrainian troops have increased the intensity of their shelling, and fired Storm Shadow missiles. “They are launched in large quantities, which means Ukrainian militants and terrorists have ammunition in sufficient quantity.”

Rogov said he did not think a full-scale counteroffensive had begun.

Ukraine has cultivated a network of agents and sympathizers inside Russia working to carry out acts of sabotage against Russian targets and has begun providing them with drones to stage attacks, multiple people familiar with US intelligence on the matter told CNN.

US officials believe these pro-Ukrainian agents inside Russia carried out a drone attack that targeted the Kremlin in early May by launching drones from within Russia rather than flying them from Ukraine into Moscow.

It is not clear whether other drone attacks carried out in recent days – including one targeting a residential neighborhood near Moscow and another strike on oil refineries in southern Russia – were also launched from inside Russia or conducted by this network of pro-Ukrainian operatives.

But US officials believe that Ukraine has developed sabotage cells inside Russia made up of a mix of pro-Ukrainian sympathizers and operatives well-trained in this kind of warfare. Ukraine is believed to have provided them with Ukrainian-made drones, and two US officials told CNN there is no evidence that any of the drone strikes have been conducted using US-provided drones.

Officials could not say conclusively how Ukraine has managed to get the drones behind enemy lines, but two of the sources told CNN that it has established well-practiced smuggling routes that could be used to send drones or drone components into Russia where they could then be assembled.

’Cash works wonders’
A European intelligence official noted that the Russian-Ukrainian border is vast and very difficult to control, making it ripe for smuggling – something the official said the Ukrainians have been doing for the better part of the decade that they’ve been at war with pro-Russian forces.

“You also have to consider that this is a peripheral area of Russia,” the official said. “Survival is everyone’s problem, so cash works wonders.”

Who exactly is controlling these assets is also murky, the sources told CNN, though US officials believe that elements within Ukraine’s intelligence community are involved. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has set general parameters for what his intelligence and security services are allowed to do, two of the sources said, but not every operation requires his sign-off.

Asked for comment, a spokesperson for the head of the Ukrainian Security Service suggested to CNN that the mysterious explosions and drone strikes inside Russia would continue.

’A culmination of months of effort’
There has been a steady drumbeat of mysterious fires and explosions inside Russia over the last year, targeting oil and fuel depots, railways, military enlistment offices, warehouses and pipelines. But officials have noticed an uptick in these attacks on Russian soil in recent weeks, beginning with the attack on the Kremlin building. It appears to be “a culmination of months of effort” by the Ukrainians to set up the infrastructure for such sabotage, said one of the sources familiar with the intelligence.

“There has been for months now a pretty consistent push by some in Ukraine to be more aggressive,” this person said, speaking anonymously because of the sensitivity of US intelligence. “And there has certainly been some willingness at senior levels. The challenge has always been their ability to do it.”

Ukraine’s military intelligence chief, Kyrylo Budanov, has consistently proposed some of the most brazen plans for operations against Russia and values symbolic acts, US officials told CNN.

Classified Pentagon documents leaked online earlier this year revealed that the CIA urged Budanov to “postpone” attacks on Russia on the anniversary of its invasion of Ukraine, according to the Washington Post. Budanov agreed to the CIA’s request, the classified documents reportedly said. But drones were spotted near Moscow on February 28, just days after the one-year anniversary of the war.

Another leaked US intelligence report obtained by CNN, which is sourced to signals intelligence, says that Zelensky in late February “suggested striking Russian deployment locations in Russia’s Rostov Oblast” using drones, since Ukraine does not have long-range weapons capable of reaching that far.

It is not clear whether that plan moved forward, but oil facilities in Rostov Oblast have caught on fire after being hit by suspected drones several times over the last year – attacks Russia is now investigating and has blamed on “criminal actions by the Armed formations of Ukraine.”

“All I will comment on is that we’ve been killing Russians,” Budanov told Yahoo News last month when asked about the car bomb attack that killed the daughter of a prominent Russian political figure in Moscow’s suburbs last year. The US intelligence community assessed that that operation was authorized by elements within the Ukrainian government.

“And we will keep killing Russians anywhere on the face of this world until the complete victory of Ukraine,” Budanov added.

A savvy military strategy
Publicly, senior US officials have condemned the strikes inside Russia, warning of the potential for an escalation of the war. But speaking privately to CNN, US and western officials said that they believe the cross-border attacks are a smart military strategy that could divert Russian resources to protecting its own territory, as Ukraine gears up for a major counteroffensive.

On Tuesday, the UK’s Foreign Secretary told reporters that Ukraine has “the right to project force beyond its borders to undermine Russia’s ability to project force into Ukraine itself. Legitimate military targets beyond its own borders are internationally recognized as being part of a nation’s self-defense…We should recognize that.”

French Vice Admiral Nicolas Vaujour, chief of operations of the Joint Staff, told CNN on Friday that the attacks inside Russia are merely “part of war” and offer an opportunity to send a message to Russia’s population.

“There is a war there and it could concern you [the Russian public] in the future,” Vaujour said of the attacks. “And so it’s a good way for Ukrainians to address a message not only to Vladimir Putin, but to the Russian population,” he added.

Ukrainian officials, moreover, have said privately that they plan to continue the attacks inside Russia because it is a good distraction tactic that is forcing Russia to be concerned with its own security at home, according to a US source who has spoken to Ukrainian officials in recent days.

A major dam and hydro-electric power plant in Russian-occupied southern Ukraine was destroyed early Tuesday, prompting mass evacuations and fears for large-scale devastation as Ukraine accused Moscow’s forces of committing an act of “ecocide.”

Residents downstream from the Nova Kakhova dam on the Dnipro River in Kherson were told to “do everything you can to save your life,” according to the head of Ukraine’s Kherson regional military administration, as video showed a deluge of water gushing from a huge breach in the dam.

Here's what we know:

What happened: According to Ukraine's military intelligence, the dam was blown up by Russian forces "in a panic." Two videos posted to social media and geolocated by CNN showed the destroyed dam wall and fast-moving torrents of water flowing out into the river. Multiple buildings at the entrance to the dam were also heavily damaged. The Russian-installed mayor of Nova Kakhovka initially denied the dam had collapsed, but then said it was struck in a "serious terrorist attack," before he later confirmed repairing it "is not possible now."

Major infrastructure: The critical dam spanned the Dnipro River, a major waterway running through southeastern Ukraine. There are multiple towns and cities downstream, including Kherson, a city of some 300,000 people before Moscow’s invasion of its neighbor.

Evacuations ongoing: In a video statement posted on Telegram, Oleksandr Prokudin, the Ukraine-appointed head of the Kherson regional military administration, said the water "will reach critical level" in a matter of hours. Prokudin said evacuations in the “area of danger” around the dam had started and urged citizens: "Leave the dangerous areas immediately."

Ukraine blames Russia: Mykhailo Podolyak, a senior aide to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, said the dam’s destruction would “create obstacles" for Ukrainian offensives. “This once again confirms that the Kremlin is not thinking strategically, but rather in terms of short-term situational advantages. But the consequences are already catastrophic,” he told CNN.

Downplayed threat: Andrey Alekseenko, another Russian-installed Kherson official, played down the threat, however. "There is no threat to people’s lives," Alekseenko said, adding that Ministry of Emergency Situation staff are in control of water levels in the Dnipro River. “If necessary, we are ready to evacuate the residents of embankment villages, buses are prepared,” Alekseenko added.

Ecological impact: Ukraine's Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said the destroyed dam "threatens an environmental disaster" for the south of Ukraine, while another top Ukrainian official called the destruction "ecocide."

EU condemnation: European Council President Charles Michel appeared to blame Russia. “Shocked by the unprecedented attack of the Nova Kakhovka dam,” he said on Twitter. “The destruction of civilian infrastructure clearly qualifies as a war crime — and we will hold Russia and its proxies accountable.”

Nuclear watch: The International Atomic Energy Agency said its experts are "closely monitoring the situation" and there is "no immediate nuclear safety risk" at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, which lies upstream from the destroyed dam and is also under Russian control.

An immense wall of water engulfing southern Ukraine looks set to have profound consequences for the war and the region itself.

But the Kakhovka dam was so crucial — providing power and drinking water for entire cities and coolant for a nearby nuclear plant — that it may take some time for the scale of the damage wrought by the vast structure’s collapse to become clear.

“It’s a massive disaster,” said Henrik Ölander-Hjalmarsson, CEO and founding partner of the Swedish hydrological modeling company Dämningsverket AB. Last fall he made a model of what would happen if this dam burst — a wave upward of 12 feet rushing down the river — but this damage “looks much worse” than that, he said, because water levels in the reservoir were already high before Tuesday’s destruction.

The dam has for decades held back the Dnieper River, a major waterway that bisects the front lines in the southern Kherson region between Russian and Ukrainian forces.

It was unclear exactly what caused the breach, with both sides trading accusations of blame. But the people living around the dam and its reservoir look certain to bear the most suffering.

Nuclear plant fears
Early concerns turned to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, Europe’s largest, which uses water from the dam’s reservoir to cool its six Soviet-era reactors.

Ukrainian and global officials have voiced fears about the Russian-controlled plant’s safety for months, though those have largely focused on direct sabotage or damage to the plant itself.

A lack of water in the plant’s cooling pond could cause the reactors to overheat and melt down If turned on — potentially spreading radiation over swaths of Ukraine and even the entire continent.

The reactors have been shut down since last year, meaning they need relatively little cooling — the equivalent of one running garden hose each — explained Mark Nelson, managing director at Radiant Energy Group, a San Francisco-based consultancy.

The International Atomic Energy Agency agreed there was no immediate risk, although that may only remain true while the reactors are shut down. A drained reservoir would mean that it will be more difficult for the plant to fire back up to full capacity when the conflict ends.

If plant staff were prevented from topping up the cooling pool, “eventually heat could build up in the reactors that would damage them,” Nelson said. “This could possibly prevent them from ever being used again, a major blow to Ukraine’s economic recovery plans.”

Deluge and drinking water
That danger is likely weeks or even months away. The immediate concern is for the people living near the dam now facing the 4.8 billion gallons of water officials previously warned would be unleashed if the structure failed.

More than half a million people “will lose their houses, a lot of them will have no access to fresh water, some of them will lose power connections,” said Oleksandr Kharchenko, head of the Energy Industry Research Center consultancy. Several “large cities” rely on the reservoir for drinking water, he said. The Russian-annexed Crimean Peninsula notably does, too.

Almost 100 towns and villages would be flooded, according to the World Data Center for Geoinformatics and Sustainable Development, a Ukrainian nongovernmental organization, and the water would only start to recede after five days to a week.

Crucially, for a crop-rich region known as Europe’s breadbasket, the deluge could also cut off irrigation to more than 600,000 acres of agricultural land and spread possibly toxic sediment downstream. That’s according to Eugene Simonov, coordinator of the Ukraine War Environmental Consequences Work Group, who was speaking in an interview in September posted on the independent organization’s website.

A senior NATO official, speaking on the condition of anonymity in order to speak freely, said the region was “probably looking at two to three days of sustained flooding” with “waters moving not just a significant height but also” at a “substantial” speed.

Because the effects are so catastrophic, attacking dams is a violation of the Geneva Conventions, which forms the basis of international law. A rare precedent came in World War II, some 130 miles upstream.

In 1941, the Red Army directed by Soviet leader Joseph Stalin detonated the Dnieper dam to slow the advance of Nazi forces sweeping through Ukraine. This was a huge sacrifice for the then-Soviet Union as the dam “was the largest, most spectacular, and most popular of all the immense projects” of Stalin’s five year plan, the American journalist Hubert Renfro Knickerbocker wrote at the time.

If Ukrainian allegations are true now, that Moscow sabotaged its own dam to thwart a potential enemy advance, it would provide a chilling historical echo of 80 years ago.