Traffic on the single bridge that links Russia to Moscow-annexed Crimea and serves as a key supply route for the Kremlinâs forces in the war with Ukraine came to a standstill on Monday after one of its sections was blown up, killing a couple and wounding their daughter.
The RBC Ukraine news agency reported that explosions were heard on the bridge, with Russian military bloggers reporting two strikes.
RBC Ukraine and another Ukrainian news outlet Ukrainska Pravda said the attack was planned jointly by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) and the Ukrainian navy, and involved sea drones.
Honey, how about we spice our family vacation up this year and go to a drought stricken stolen land near an active war zone?
At this point, any Russian families remaining in Crimea really should leave for their own safety. They know full well they live on stolen land.
Many of them moved there as active contributors to the genocide in that region.
What? Do you have anything that shows the demographics significantly changed at all? The population was 76% russian in 2014 before Russia took it. You have data that shows that significantly increased?
No it was at 67.9%, up from 60.4% in 2001 down from 67% in 1989. Up from 6.6% in 1850 when Russification really started. Also note the suspicious absence of Tatars during the times of the Soviet Union and their return afterwards. And TBH I trust those censuses 2014 onwards about as much as I trust Russian referenda.
Also, âpeople speak Russian at homeâ is not, by a long shot, the same thing as âwant to be part of Russiaâ much less âwant to live under <currenttsar>'s bootâ or âwant to suffer yet another Holodomorâ. Crimea had a referendum just as the rest of Ukraine did and it didnât want to be part of Russia by a good margin. The question of âpart of Ukraine or independentâ was more split, but that turned towards âpart of Ukraineâ as Ukraine failed to treat Crimea badly and independence would be difficult for such a small country in such an exposed situation.
You mean that Ukrainians who are ethnically and linguistically Russians and who had been residing in Crimea before the formation of the current Ukraine country should have no political righst nor property ownership rights?
Crimea is 76% russian. It was almost 70% russian before 2014 and it is around 76% russian today. Almost all of these people lived there already.
Russian speaking != Russian. A majority in Crimea voted for independence from Russia in 1991 and that desire for independence from Russia did not lessen between 1991 and 2014 when Russiaâs imperial war of conquest against Ukraine began.
A majority of Russians rose up in opposition against the Ukrainian government during the Ukrainian revolution in support of Russian annexation. You canât just ignore that a large number of people in Crimea were onboard with annexation.
Sure. But that doesnât really change the census data much.
This applies to Donetsk and Luhansk too. All three of these regions were ethnic majority Russian, and the separatism kicked off when the Maidan government banned the Russian language in official government usage (schools, local institutions etc).
As others have pointed out, Crimea is not 82% Russian. The majority of the populace speaks Russian, but a shared language does not indicate a shared culture. They donât want to be part of Russia, and were illegally invaded.
Crimea wasnât âinvadedâ. Russia was already there as it leased the port and officially managed it for military use already. Thatâs why there was no fighting. They already ran the checkpoints, they already were the entire military presence in the region. The changeover from âthis is Ukraineâ to âthis is Russia nowâ was entirely the signing of papers and changed absolutely nothing about the presence in the region or the average day to day. They certainly took it over, but to say it was invaded is somewhat misleading, more of a âweâve decided that this is ours nowâ.
This is an ethnic argument, further pointing to the idea that you are making distinctly fascist points in this thread.
Oh my the tankies donât like this at all.
Fuck I blocked one troll and this entire thread literally decreased in size by more than half.
If it werenât for Prigozhin and his Wagner mercenaries staging a mutiny against the Russian military, I would have cast serious doubt on Ukraineâs counteroffensive succeeding. Regardless of what you think about the competency of the Russian armed forces, it canât be denied that Wagner are one of their few effective units in force.
Ukraine has remained boldly united in the face of a long and a bloody war on their own doorstep, whereas weâve seen deteriorating Russian morale, both within the countryâs borders and on the frontlines.
At this rate I think that Zelenskyy will retake Crimea and the Donbas within months.
What is with the Prigozhin/Wagner mutiny anyway? Never heard anything after.
It died when Belarus intervened and brokered a compromise between the Wagner group and Putin. Still unfolding so we still donât know the full story. Hereâs a summary from Business Insider.
My guess is he got paid off to back down. Putin has a lot of money and probably offered him safety in Belarus as well as a huge chunk of change for him and his troops.
What does that have to do with the effectiveness of the counter offensive?
https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-war-dubik-interview-defense-offense-tavberidze/32476276.html
"Well, campaigns are judged on how much they contribute to the strategic gains. So, [Ukrainian] President [Volodymyr] Zelenskiyâs strategic aim is to secure his countryâs political sovereignty, territorial integrity, and that sets conditions for economic prosperity. Thatâs how I read them. And so, a successful counteroffensive will achieve all of those or move toward achieving those.
So, what that means on the ground is that Ukraineâs forces have to seize back enough territory from the Russians to, at the minimum, force the Russians to negotiate from a position of weakness and from a position that Zelenskiy can secure political sovereignty, territorial integrity, and thus economic prosperity. So, itâs not an objective of how many miles, how many cities. Itâs the relationship of the campaign and the strategic objectives that determines success."
Let me know when Ukraine is able to achieve enough success to force Russia to the table on their terms.
Ukraine is making good progress and there is no doubt how degraded and brittle the Russian defenses are.
As the campaign succeeds, the impacts of their striking capabilities will become more and more clear.
Remember that degraded morale has a compounding effect as well. If a position hears that four other positions near them have failed, they might decide âwell fuck itâ, and then the positions behind THEM hear âwell now five positions have failedâ and they scramble, and so on. Combine that with the fact that Russian morale is already reportedly extremely low (who wouldâve thought conscripts make shitty and unhappy soldiers).
