Russia Ukraine Update Thread - part 3

a reply to: ADVISOR

That symbol isn't a Swastika, is it a Balkenkreuz or bar cross, which was introduced in WWI and was the symbol of the Wehrmacht in WWII.

Now whether these bar crosses on the images provided by China Daily are anything besides photoshop schlock is another question. My guess is that they are, as the Ukrainian combat vehicles I have seen only have a single-lined horizontal/vertical cross.

As for the original post by @imitator, even the title of the video says "Ukrainian military boss flaunts his new bought U.S. wheels". He bought it, and it looks like a late-model Humvee, not some surplus vehicle from Desert Storm.

Balkenkreuz

a reply to: MrInquisitive

There are actually quite a few photographs and videos available that depict Ukrainian military vehicles with Wehrmacht crosses painted on them.

Surprisingly, it's not as difficult to find these photos as one might think, despite it being hidden by the MSM.

There are plenty of photographs and videos capturing these vehicles from various angles and perspectives, making it highly unlikely that every single image is Photoshop.

Link: twitter.com...

originally posted by: ufoorbhunter
a reply to: Oldcarpy2 it is scary stuff mate yet to be expected. Russian' have their sphere of influence, they have their near abroad, they have their sense of pride, yet there are PTB on this world that desire their complete destruction. From a Russian perspective the pretence of peace and an end to the zcold War has proved to be a lie only playable by a con artist trickster youtu.be...

I don’t think it’s TPTB that lost Russia their sphere of influence. Those in the sphere wanted out. Pretty evident with a majority of former satellites leaning away.

originally posted by: imitator
a reply to: MrInquisitive

There are actually quite a few photographs and videos available that depict Ukrainian military vehicles with Wehrmacht crosses painted on them.

Surprisingly, it's not as difficult to find these photos as one might think, despite it being hidden by the MSM.

There are plenty of photographs and videos capturing these vehicles from various angles and perspectives, making it highly unlikely that every single image is Photoshop.

Thx for the response. But just for the record, Twitter links these days are worthless if one doesn't have a Twitter account, so I don't suggest citing Twitter to make a point.

You may be right about these images being for real; however, I haven't seen any until your posts. I googled "ukraine Balkenkreuz", and found an article on the matter. First, however, I'll mention that the WWII German Wehrmacht Balkenkreuz has not been used since 1945. The current German insignia has flared edges (this is in the article too).

This type of cross has a specific history in Ukraine, however, that predated its use in Nazi Germany. A guerrilla warfare campaign carried out by the Ukrainian National Army against the Red Army and other forces from 1919 to 1920 is known as the First Winter Campaign. As described in an article posted by the Foreign Intelligence Service of Ukraine.

The campaign, the article continued, led to a Ukrainian "national consciousness" and became a symbol of Ukrainian resistance:

The Winter Campaign contributed to the significant rise of the spirit of the Army and national consciousness among the masses of the Ukrainian population. [...] The Ukrainian population realized the true essence of its slogans. The Winter Campaign also laid the traditions of successful armed struggle in the rear of the enemy, which was repeatedly used in different periods of Ukrainian history.

A "steel cross," as it is sometimes described in Ukraine, was the symbol of that Winter Campaign — the military award given for participation in these campaigns contained that equidistant cross. In this case, the cross is created by the negative space between gold lines.

In 2019, a Ukrainian military unit that has been fighting in the Donbas region of Ukraine since 2014 — the 28th Mechanized Infantry Brigade — was renamed "Knights of the First Winter Campaign." That Brigade's insignia, approved by the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense, presently contains this same cross.

Several Ukrainian tanks or other military vehicles have been photographed with similar crosses painted on their exterior, particularly those fighting in and around the highly contested city of Bakhmut.

The 28th Mechanized Brigade, among others, suffered heavy losses in defense of this city. While it is hard to infer intent from a photograph or a video, the use of such a cross in Ukraine must be considered in this specific context before concluding its use is a reference to a movement — Nazism — whose armed forces used the same symbol 20 years later.

In the article there are pictures of these Ukrainian insignia. I have not been able to figure out yet how to post pictures on this site, so you can check them out there.

Does the Ukrainian Military Display a 'Nazi Cross' on Some Vehicles or Tanks?

TL;DR: This barred cross is primarily used by the Ukrainian 28th Mechanized Brigade and predates WWII, using a symbol that dates back to the Winter Campaign of 1919, and which symbolizes Ukrainian nationalism.

I have never believed the claims of Nazism being a prevalent movement in Ukraine. Sure, there has been a bit of a movement, and there were Ukrainian nationalist militia with Nazi overtones previously in the conflict, but the Ukrainian government was no doubt taking any militia group willing to fight earlier in the conflict. Anyone who has studied the Soviet-German War knows that the Germans were just as ruthless to Ukrainians as they were to Russians, and when the Soviets returned, they were also ruthless in extirpating Ukrainian partisans because they feared an uprising by them. So I can't believe that Ukrainians have a nostalgia of those good ol' days from 1941-1944 under Nazi occupation.

3 July Update

Ukrainian forces conducted counteroffensive operations in at least four sectors of the front and made marginal advances on July 3. The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) claimed that Ukrainian forces conducted counteroffensive operations in the Lyman direction. Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Malyar stated that Ukrainian forces continue counteroffensive operations in the Bakhmut area, the western Donetsk-Zaporizhia Oblast border area, and in western Zaporizhia Oblast.

Russian forces continued drone and missile strikes against rear areas in Ukraine overnight and during the day on July 3. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces launched 17 Shahed drones at unspecified areas of Ukraine overnight on July 2-3, and Ukrainian forces shot down 13 of the drones.

More at URL above.

Cheers

a reply to: MrInquisitivece

The reality seems to be that the Ukrainian counteroffensive has stalled because of a lack of men and materials. An American meeting with the BRICS excluding Russia, asking them to drop their support of Russia has failed. Riots across Europe are showing Russia that the leadership is weak and unpopular. Putin has said that talks with the instigators of this conflict are pointless. The Meeting of NATO at Villnias has pushed Ukraine's membership to the back of the queue. The UK has said that ties with Russia at the end of this war would be a good thing. The leaders are starting to realize that Putin is sincere in his contemplations to withdraw diplomatic representatives from certain countries. Basically, they are crapping their pants because they have fought Russia to the last Ukrainian, and now it is time to do one or get off the pot.The reality is quite starkly that if Russia wins this one and does not stop at Ukraine because a state of war will exist between Russia and most likely America and the UK. Then in the likelihood that Russia wins, the leaders of the West will most likely get hung, with half of the population cheering them on. That is the stark reality .

a reply to: anonentity

Honestly, I wrote a long post refuting your claim's but lost it when I miss-clicked some button on my browser. The bottom line is that it is ridiculous to engage with anyone citing Alexander Mercouris. The guy is a Kremlin stooge and tool.

Like I said, I don't normally reply in this flippant a fashion, but I am not going to waste my time re-typing what I originally wrote. I'll just say that anyone who thinks that the west is afraid of Russia attacking a NATO country is whistling the "Song Of The Volga Boatmen".

originally posted by: CriticalStinker

originally posted by: ufoorbhunter
a reply to: Oldcarpy2 it is scary stuff mate yet to be expected. Russian' have their sphere of influence, they have their near abroad, they have their sense of pride, yet there are PTB on this world that desire their complete destruction. From a Russian perspective the pretence of peace and an end to the zcold War has proved to be a lie only playable by a con artist trickster youtu.be...

I don’t think it’s TPTB that lost Russia their sphere of influence. Those in the sphere wanted out. Pretty evident with a majority of former satellites leaning away.

If yo are referring to the Baltic states then they've always been unwilling participants and harbour many Nazi elements. It's in their DNA. If you're on about other coloured revolutions these were orchestrated abroad usually using leadership installed following a good old dose of brain washing in western educational facilities Saakashvilli stayle. Much of the former USSR is still part of the Kremlin's near abroad. Western plotters can attempt to Balkanise the region yet geography will always win over in the end as that can never be changed.

a reply to: ufoorbhunter

If yo are referring to the Baltic states then they've always been unwilling participants and harbour many Nazi elements.

Don't know how many Latvians, Lithuanians or Estonians you've met mate but I've got to say its my personal experience that they are damned sight less racist etc than the Polish, Hungarians and Russians.

If yo are referring to the Baltic states then they've always been unwilling participants and harbour many Nazi elements.

Bollocks to this mystifying notion of 'near abroad'.
Ireland was part of the UK or under English control for nearly 750 years - barring a decade or so of independence - until the 20th century.
Does that mean that Ireland is the UK's 'near abroad' and can walk in there with tanks and guns simply because they are now an independent country whp determine their own policies and won't bow down to UK intimidation?

Can China dictate policy to all the countries that neighbour it because its their 'near abroad'?

originally posted by: Freeborn
a reply to: ufoorbhunter

If yo are referring to the Baltic states then they've always been unwilling participants and harbour many Nazi elements.

Don't know how many Latvians, Lithuanians or Estonians you've met mate but I've got to say its my personal experience that they are damned sight less racist etc than the Polish, Hungarians and Russians.

If yo are referring to the Baltic states then they've always been unwilling participants and harbour many Nazi elements.

Bollocks to this mystifying notion of 'near abroad'.
Ireland was part of the UK or under English control for nearly 750 years - barring a decade or so of independence - until the 20th century.
Does that mean that Ireland is the UK's 'near abroad' and can walk in there with tanks and guns simply because they are now an independent country whp determine their own policies and won't bow down to UK intimidation?

Can China dictate policy to all the countries that neighbour it because its their 'near abroad'?

Yeah know where you are coming from on the peoples of the east. They really are a nasty bunch. Me landlord at work is a born in Britain refugee camp Pole, quite like him actually, but is so racist it's crazy. They believe total nonsense, his dad wouldn't even visit the brother in the States he was convinced it was run by the Jews. The stories that get passed own they actually believe the nonsense, drinking Christian blood etc, really really believe it as fact lol.

Then again do consider Estonians in part as Nazi's. They have a good record right to the present day of Nazi leanings. and they really don't seem to like Russian's, inside their own state and outside.

On the near abroad, the Russian's do consider Kiev Russian, regardless of the population, they do consider it the heart of the original Russia. |||||Added to this pretty much all of eastern Ukraine also the south was developed by Russian's. We will never understand the importance of these places to Russia. Ireland was never the heart of Britain with all respect, indeed it was a separate place wit a completely different culture and language developed so they said recently on ATS from ancient Egyptian migrants to the emerald isle in the south and Norse coming in from the north. Ireland was never taken by the Romans and retained its separate ways. Completely a different place to the rest of Great Britain, bar the northern plantations which in many ways are the same as Novo Russia in Ukraine's south, but southern Ireland proper might as well have been be on another planet until quite recently. Russia and Ukraine are not on another planet, they speak pretty much a similar language, they have the same culture, they consider in normal times a brotherhood between themselves, they share the same history based on creation in Ukraine. Britain and Ireland that's old news, 100 years since independence, Ukraine and Russia is not in this same category, they were part of the same union within living memory for many of the people.

a reply to: dragonridr

This may require a new "research project" to get to the bottom of...

a reply to: anonentity
Are you really buying this Russian propaganda from Alexander Mercouris, a (former?) fellow at the American University in Moscow?

Though he's right there's a NATO meeting coming up on July 11 and others have also said Zelensky feels some pressure to show more significant advances before that meeting, the front lines are not at a standstill as he claims.

Biased in the other direction is Ukrainian youtuber Denys Davydov, but he's using third party maps from Deep State to bolster his assertion that the Ukrainians are actually advancing faster in their counter offensive than the Russians did in their offensive. The example he gives at 12:40 in the video is that Russians moved from Lsychansk to Bakhmut, 35 km, in one year. Compare that to the last month, when Ukrainians advanced 10km in the south. So Ukraine's 10km/1mo advance is faster than Russia's 35km/12 mo advance. Hardly seems like a standstill as that video claims.

Alexander Mercouris says the Ukrainians in their bridgehead on the east side of the Antonovsky bridge were destroyed. Denys shows the Russian video of an explosion there but he says it missed and the Ukrainians are still there. So what is the truth? If you look closely at the video of the explosion, it actually missed the land and hit the river, and the Ukraine troops weren't in the river, so it looks like the claim the explosion missed its target is true, and that Alexander Mercouris doesn't have much credibility. Look closely at where the explosion is:




Another point Denys makes is the false flag announcement from Russia that Ukraine is going to attack their own nuclear power plant in Enerhodar tonight.
Which of course doesn't make any sense, but it's claimed the Russians have mined the roofs of the nuclear power plant buildings and may trigger the mines and claim Ukraine's drones caused the damage.

a reply to: imitator

I don't get why anyone would photoshop a Wehrmacht cross on the tanks, instead of a Swastika or some other symbol associated with Nazis and not just the army.

a reply to: Arbitrageur

A nuclear fallout scenario would be just the thing to enact Article 5 , even if it was a small amount. Plus marshal law among the member states to stop the rioting would be handy.It a script you can forecast it .

originally posted by: anonentity
A nuclear fallout scenario would be just the thing to enact Article 5 , even if it was a small amount. Plus marshal law among the member states to stop the rioting would be handy.It a script you can forecast it .

In forecasting, you are just proffering one of many scenarios.

Personally, if nukes were used by Russia, or a nuclear disaster occurred leading to fall-out (as it would), then it is likely there would be intervention. Nato have already said that the use of nukes would result in an overwhelming non-nuclear response, and fall-out from some other nuclear disaster would require intervention to remediate. In both cases, it's probably likely that Russia would be forced out.

On the "martial law" angle, oft predicted, it won't happen. Western democracies are strong enough to weather a bunch of disaffected rioters. Although it has to be said that a state akin to martial law exists in Russia.

originally posted by: anonentity
a reply to: Arbitrageur

A nuclear fallout scenario would be just the thing to enact Article 5 , even if it was a small amount. Plus marshal law among the member states to stop the rioting would be handy.It a script you can forecast it .

Martial law amongst NATO member states, huh? When exactly are you forecasting that to occur? You can make up whatever fevered conspiratorial script you want; it doesn't make it a fact. Has Ukraine also blown up its own cities and pushed hundreds of thousands of its people into Russia?

And nothing would make more sense than for Ukraine to launch a false flag attack against the largest nuclear power facility in Europe, right in the middle of their country, right along side their largest river, and a city of 746k within the nuclear exclusion zone. Why not blow up a dirty bomb in Kyiv while they're at it? Never mind that such an action may not even precipitate the enacting of Article 5 by NATO.

4 July Update

Ukrainian forces appear to be focusing on creating an asymmetrical attrition gradient that conserves Ukrainian manpower at the cost of a slower rate of territorial gains, while gradually wearing down Russian manpower and equipment. Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council Secretary Oleksiy Danilov reported on July 4 that Ukrainian forces are performing their main task of destroying Russian manpower, equipment, fuel depots, artillery, and air defenses and that a “war of destruction is equal to a war of kilometers.” . . . . Ukrainian forces continued counteroffensive operations on at least four sectors of the front and advanced on July 4.

Russian authorities are absolving Wagner Group financier Yevgeny Prigozhin of financial responsibility for damages caused by the Wagner Group rebellion and reportedly returned significant liquid assets to Prigozhin, possibly as part of the deal negotiated between Putin, Prigozhin, and Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko. The Rostov-on-Don administration claimed that the total damages from Prigozhin’s rebellion amounted to 92.5 million rubles (roughly $1 million), and that the administration will not recover damages from Prigozhin or the Wagner Group. St. Petersburg news outlet Fontanka claimed, citing internal sources, that Russian authorities returned over 10 billion rubles (roughly $111 million) in cash, five gold bars, and hundreds of thousands of US dollars in cash to Prigozhin on July 2 that authorities had seized from Prigozhin-affiliated facilities in St. Petersburg on June 24.

The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) claimed that Ukrainian forces conducted a drone attack on Moscow Oblast and Novaya Moskva on July 4. The Russian MoD claimed that Russian air defenses shot down and electronic warfare suppressed five of five Ukrainian drones.

More at URL above.

Cheers

originally posted by: Arbitrageur
Alexander Mercouris

This guy..
I am no iltelligence expert,but Alexander looks like he was ripe for the taking by the FSB.
Back in 2012 there was not even a whisper from him about how wonderful Russia is.
In those days he was a barrister in London-but was disbarred for bringing the profession into disrepute.
www.legalcheek.com...
There is a guy with an axe to grind against the British establishment,and grind it he does by reinventing himself as a pro Russian commentator who consistently goes on about all the russian talkiing points concerning the evil "collective west."



In other news,here is some almost cinematic drone footage of a Russian grad rocket storage depo in Makiivka being anihilated by a possible storm shadow-Big bang at the 1 minute mark:

I would not like to be a russian soldier guarding an ammo depot with storm shadows flying around.

a reply to: MrInquisitive

That's what we are trying to explain to mr imitator..

Iron cross is not a swaztika.

But trolls gunna troll...



On another note, while all eyes are distracted away from the real issue, our American corrupt career parasite politicians, are getting away with incalculable levels of crime.

Why?

Is Ukraine really that important to every day people?
Or just the politicians who use misappropriation of federal taxpayer funds, to line their already deep pockets?

When will We The People, stop being dumbasses, and wise up to the fact that the same fools who have been in DC for decades, are not going to solve the problems they created.

5 July Update

Ukrainian forces reportedly conducted counteroffensive operations in five sectors of the front on July 5 and made gains in some areas. Geolocated footage posted on July 5 shows that Ukrainian forces have advanced southwest of Berkhivka (6km northwest of Bakhmut), west of Yahidne (2km north of Bakhmut), and southwest of Bakhmut. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces conducted offensive operations south and north of Bakhmut, and Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Malyar stated that Ukrainian forces are advancing in an unspecified area on Bakhmut’s southern flank.

Ukrainian forces reportedly conducted a series of missile strikes targeting Russian rear positions along the entire front overnight and during the day on July 5. Geolocated footage published on July 4 indicates that Ukrainian forces struck an ammunition depot in Makiivka, Donetsk Oblast (6km northeast of Donetsk City).

More at URL above.

Cheers