2023-04-06

12:27 – Johan No.1

JIV mentioned yesterday that China has stated that they do not recognize Crimea and the oblasts as Russian.
https://twitter.com/front_ukrainian/status/1643553968080003073
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/05/world/europe/eu-china-embassador-russia-fu-cong.html

China had already officially stated this in January 2023.

I know there is no consensus in the thread on how to interpret Chinese agreements. Apparently, with China, one should not interpret things as they appear to be as is customary with everything else.

What is really interesting about China is whether they will try to influence the war in Russia’s favor in some way through offensive weapons or pressure negotiations.

Anyone who does not want to interpret China’s statements as they are written absolutely cannot produce any evidence that China is actively influencing negotiations or sending offensive weapons to Russia at present, or that they have firm plans for it – like stockpiled materiel at transport hubs.

The fact is that at the summit between Xi and Putin, there were no references to helping Russia win the war in Ukraine.

So far, one can either interpret China’s statements as they are written and also conclude that they are not influencing the war in any way.

Or interpret that they do not mean what they say but find no signs that China is trying to influence the war in Russia’s favor.

Now that Ukraine, through intermediaries, has scoured China for parts for 100,000 drones, it almost feels like China has helped Ukraine more than Russia here?

Sure, they have given Russia materiel mainly for manufacturing and certainly also ammunition, but what Russia needs today is either frozen fronts or offensive weapons in large quantities as well as instructors – we do not see that from China and then Russia loses the war.

Then we have this statement from ISW (Omni) which further supports the assumption that China is trying to slip away –
“When Putin yesterday held a meeting with 17 top Russian diplomats, he instead chose to highlight Russia’s relations with Syria and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, and did not mention China, writes ISW.”

For my part, I have enough on solid ground to consider that China will not actively try to influence the war in Russia’s favor and it is not far from throwing them under the bus 😀

Over to Russia, now they benefit a bit from a different time zone here and could guest star in Erik14 and Lunation’s epic night shift for about fifteen minutes yesterday – I felt like a winner before crashing on the couch with a broad smile.

All according to the Twitter rumors below and it is in the area of cracks that we are watching for –

The Russians have started an anti-terror operation in Ingushetia, a Russian republic that is largely Muslim?
They have already had a lot of activity there in connection with the mobilization, for example.

There was also a Twitter rumor circulating that a call to rise against Kadyrov in Chechnya – another Russian republic that is also Muslim – had gone around.

This is an area that is constantly boiling, so no reason to dismiss it with a “won’t happen”.

Then I guess that the Muslim minority is among those who feel furthest from the ethnic-Russian rule (or whatever the correct term is). They have a different culture, religion, customs, and so on.
Historically, they have also been treated very badly by Russia-Soviet, and finally Russia again. Always treated badly, that is.

Now, admittedly, the Russian army is zeroed out, refined and ready but there are 500,000 soldiers in all agencies, Rosgvardia, and other PMCs in the country Russia.

They are meant for crowd control and just for things like this but if things move in too many places at once they are hopeless and that is the “bodyguard” for the country Russia so when they are stretched to the breaking point there is nothing behind.

If chaos breaks out in Belarus again soon, they are probably close to the breaking point if the citizens in Muscovite Russia get eager to demonstrate against something…

Then a tweet flew around that I did not dare to latch onto as it was from non-pre-qualified accounts but when Gerashenko posted it, and Lunation posted it in the thread yesterday, it feels credible.

Putin gave a speech and none of the audience applauded – he gives several indications that it is time for applause, he gets none and finally leaves in front of rolling cameras completely without applause with a very nervous smile.
https://twitter.com/Gerashchenko_en/status/1643702297992519683?cxt=HHwWhoCzxYCizc8tAAAA

You can see for yourselves, everything is in front of rolling cameras. Pretty sure this is a big deal if no one can prove that it is not what it looks like.

In the country Russia, people fall from balconies for very little and here Putin is humiliated by easily identifiable Russians in front of rolling live cameras for the whole world to see – I see a huge crack that one can fall into.

You can only like Zelensky and when he receives Poland’s highest honor it feels good.

That this war has gone as it has is largely Zelensky’s ability to navigate a variety of roles, to surround himself with competence and allow own initiatives at all levels.

Very un-Russian so it must have been very non-Ukrainian as well and absolutely war-winning.

If he had accepted the US offer and left Ukraine in the first days, anything could probably have happened.

He is a unifying force who holds/has held the anthill in check.
https://twitter.com/NOELreports/status/1643555242787631106?s=20

Today we do not show the torture victim which I managed to do two days ago – excuse the mistake and the rule breach, improvement promised.

Take a look at how those who watched the film clicked, 99% give a thumbs up or cry-laugh and a few are negative.

Do you remember the film posted in the thread with the soldier who was hit when he was in a stream and drowned over a minute?
He was a Russian and at most a few comments in the thread said “terrible end 😬”.

I think this says something about a broader behavior that we probably sense but maybe do not quite want to believe (yet).

To me, it signals a fairly high level of radicalization to be able to laugh at something like that, the worst thing to see is people when they die or are under torture, and die.

The same phenomenon I thought I saw during ISIS rampages where people happily shared films of the worst tortures leading to death and laughed themselves silly. Every returnee has an image in front of that fence with severed heads for example – it became a status symbol.

There were some French psychologists who took on the task of “deprogramming” returned Syria terrorists’ children under 10 years old and they concluded that it was almost impossible (if I remember correctly).

The country Russia has probably never been thought of in terms of severe radicalization but one starts to wonder actually after what has been seen in this war and how the home front has reacted to the most serious abuses that one usually avoids looking at.
https://twitter.com/Tatarigami_UA/status/1642253112923619329?s=20

Two days ago we had the factory that was supposed to produce Russian tanks by the hundreds but has been dismantled for a couple of years.

Now we have this – large factories fail to complete armored vehicles because vital parts are missing, primarily guidance systems.

Consider here that when the West scales up its production, they do not suffer from material shortages and about 30-40 countries contribute production capacity that already far exceeds Russia’s, which also has bottlenecks in production to contend with.

Downward slope…
https://twitter.com/pati_marins64/status/1638913309217898500?s=20

On the subject of the downward slope, the Russians are transferring oil between ships off African ports to circumvent sanctions – it’s not going well for them at all, imperialist Russia is smuggling dirty oil off the coast of Africa, what a fall 😀
https://twitter.com/TheDeadDistrict/status/1643600705716989952?s=20

Here’s another one calculating losses; if he’s right, it looks bad for the Russian chaos team but I don’t know the source from before so utmost caution is advised.
https://twitter.com/HerrDr8/status/1643250306128531456?s=20

Transnistria has been somewhat on the brink of falling for a month now.

Bakhmut is otherwise quite obvious – a large number of offensive units and the Russian army has, according to rumors, abandoned Wagner to its fate but we don’t know that.

That preparations are underway on the southern front is indisputable.

Northern Luhansk is progressing – if you look at the unit maps there are now more heavy units in that area than before and UA has advanced in the famous forests of Kreminna where VDV goes in and no VDV comes out.

Between Soledar – Siversk is also quite an obvious attack vector now that the Russians are low on everything there apparently.

Ukraine has the opportunity to go on the offensive virtually everywhere is the only conclusion 👍

Speaking of digging deep – the Russians have lost 75 T62s documented by Oryx so probably double that.
That’s quite a few, it would be interesting to see graphs of when different tank types have been lost actually if any trend can be found.

The bubble list is boiling and the spring offensive is one day closer to its start.

According to yesterday, I am quite sure that negotiations are ongoing behind the scenes here, anything else would be unreasonable.

Also quite sure that the condition of the Russian defense is not very good, this is not officially confirmed in any way so it must be parked but I consider the probability of a Ukrainian breakthrough high.

Girkin also seems to think that the condition of the Russian team is not the best but that’s Girkin as I said, what he writes is however completely logical.
https://twitter.com/secretsqrl123/status/1643746698425167874?s=46&t=YM34OPIvD0_vsHASIvcDAg

Wonder if Russian soldiers are looking extra deeply into the mash tub over the Easter weekend?

12:27 – Johan No.1

Managed to post it in yesterday’s thread first…

13:22 – MatsExtrude

👍

Started wondering if it might end with a dark horse that finally decides this..🤔

15:22 – Johan No.1

We are definitely approaching that.