[Mentalist]

So, when we last left off, ATO was ramping up, and it looked as if we might get some real progress.

Then there was a snag.

Uki President declared a "unilateral cease fire" in an effort to commence negotiations. There were actually several rounds of talks--with OSCE and Russia reps, with Ukraine's second president Kuchma (the father of the current oligarchic political system) representing Ukrainian governent (a move that raised quite a few eyebrows), and an incredibly odious duo of Nestor Shufrych (a Party of Regions MP) and Viktor Medvedchuk (oligarch, Kuchma's head of Administration, and godfather to Putin's child) as mediators--the latter move causing outright anger and incomprehension. The "negotiations" were veiled in secrecy, and quite ineffective as far as the average person could tell--despite the ceasefire, terrorists continued attacking govt forces.

On June 27th, the last day of ceasefire, Ukraine officially signed the Association Agreement with EU. Same day the ùnilateral ceasefire`was extended for days, giving terrorists a chance to lay down their arms, at which point the govt was willing to begin negotiations with the regions. During these 3 days, Terrorists shot down another helicopter. This led to a lot of (predictable) anger amongst Pro-unity people, with another rally on Sunday the 29th, which included soldiers from the volunteer battalions, most notably from "Donbass". The main message was unequivocal: "This is going to be the last time we rally peacefully for you to deal with terrorists".

So, President Poroshenko found himself between his own angry supporters who wanted results, and EU and US (mostly EU), which urged for "peace and negotiation". He made a wise choice in choosing the people in nearest proximity.

On June 30th, he announced the unilateral ceasefire will not be continued. Same night, shelling and arial bombardment of terrorist checkpoints began.

On Tuesday, June 1st, ATO forces began a massive offensive in several directions
-From the west, they have engaged DNR terrorists on the outskirts of Donetsk around the villages of Karlivka and Maryinka
-Fighting resumed around Severodonetsk and Lysychansk
-along the south-East border between Russia and Ukraine, ATO forces took back control over border crossing "Dolzhanskyy"-one of hte 3 border crossings that were controlled by terrorists.
-Heavy fighting resumed around Slovyansk and sough of Krasnyj Liman (which was liberated prior to the ceasefire)
In addition, more infighting happened in Donetsk, where a portion of DNR terrorists attempted to storm the police HQ (technically still held by Ukrainian govt), while another portion of the DNR tried to protect the HQ. reports vary on who was where.

On Wednesday June 2nd, ATO forces made serious gains.
-around Slov'ynask, ATO took control over several villages south of Krasnyj Liman. The area between Krasnyj Liman and Slovyansk was heavily wooded, so the going was slow, but ATO made gains, cutting off additional supply lines for the Slovyansk-based DNR group led by Strelkov. In addition ATO secured a bridge village of Zakitne, gaining access to the road towards Artemivsk with the potential to completely surround and cut off Slovyansk. ATO also destroyed and secured Terrorist checkpoint onthe outskirts of the village of Mykolaivka (village next to slovyansk). During the night, Mykolayivka was taken.
-There was a lot of controversy concerning a shelling/bombing of the town of Stanytsa Luganskaya, just east of Luhansk. Russian media painted it as "Aerial bombing of civilians by Kyyv Fashists". The official response was a denial and a number of unconvincing explanations (Terrorists used artillery to make a pretty picture/terrorists took out a radar station, which allowed Russian warplanes to bomb the town undetected) I'm unsure which side to believe here.

Thursday, June 3
-ATO troops took control of the Border crossing "Izvarino" next to the city of Krasnodon. Terrorists remain in control of only one border crossing along the major highway "Rostov-Kharkiv"
-New Minister of Defence promises a victory parade in "Ukrainian Sevastopol" in Crimea, hinting that Ukraine will not accept the annexation of Crimea.
-There were also a number of reports about terrorists approaching the Russian border with the intent to cross it, where Russian border guards opened fire. Russia denied these allegations.
-Continued fighting around Slov'yansk led to mass desertions maongs DNR supporters--the main reason why DNR abandoned Mykolayivka. This information was confirmed by DNR spokesperson, and in the separatist social media.
-Towards the evening, ATO forces from Metalist, including the battalion "Aydar" advanced into the city of Luhansk, retaking a military unit in the western suburb that was captured by LNR terrorists earlier. A paratrooper division remains under siege in the Luhansk airport in the southern part of the city.

Friday, June 4th-relatively quiet day
-Fighting resumed around Western approaches to Donetsk near Karlivka
-Strelkov, leader of DNR terrorists in Slovyansk accused Russia of inaction and stated that unless Russia interferes, "Novorossiya will be lost within 2 weeks".
-There was a massive rumour campaign that Russia will bring in its troops as "peacekeepers" in the next 2 days.
-ATO forces completely overran the town of Mykolayivka, cutting off Slovyansk from access to the Rostov-Kharkiv highway.
-in the evening, a group of ATO troops and in partikular volunteer battalion "Artemivsk" performed a reconnaisaince raid into the city of Artemivsk on 2 ATP. Using grenade launchers, they have demolished DNR HQ in the city before retreating back north.
-In the southern part of the Donetsk oblast, around Snizhne-Torez-SHahktarsk city complex, ATO selling completely obliterated an ATO firebase on a strategically important hill, undermining their defences in the area.

Saturday, June 6th
-DNR terrorists evacuated Slov'yansk. Due to the threat of complete encirclement, terrorist leader Strelkov ordered the terrorists to abandon the city. There are numerous reports of DNR terrrorist abandoning their checkpoints.
-Slovyansk was captured by ATO forces. locall police were arrested for collaborating with terrorists. Columns of terrorists flee to Donetsk.
-Following the capture of slovyansk, ATO forces enter Artemivsk, meeting no resistance. Kramatorsk was also abandoned by DNR.

As a result of the week's activity, ATO has restored control over the northern part of Donetsk oblast, made significant gains in restoring control over the border with Russia, and entered the city of Luhansk. Civilian casualties were kept to a minimum.

Good day. Ukrainian forces are picking up momentum, and despite intense pressure from Russia through EU, the Pres knows he can't turn back, because his career depends on being able to handle the massive demand for the end of Russian intervention. If he takes a step back, he will be taken out by those willing to carry on the fight. He has to ride the wave and master it, or be swept aside.

This post has been edited by Mentalist: 05 July 2014 - 07:26 PM

[Mentalist]

Skipped last week due to being away (father's b-day). Will provide a detailed update tomorrow.

[Mentalist]

Briar King, on 16 July 2014 - 09:41 PM, said:

Hmm something must have happened as Obama is about to hold a press conference here.

More sanctions. US Treasury blocking Gazprom bank, a few defense industry corps, and Russian oil corps-they won't be able to borrow money in USD. Oh, and VneshEconomBank-Russia's Foreign investments bank-state corp for funding Russian state projects in other countries.

EU is doing the wimpy "sanctions 2.5"-extending targeted sanctions list (tbd by end of July), but refusing to do sector-wide sanctions. Oh, and European Econ Development bank and Euro Investmeent bank are forbidden from any further investments in Russian projects, except for those to do w/ civil society (won't affect current ongoing projects tho, and we're talking about smth like half a billion in potential losses)

Also, US State Dept proclaimed Kremlin is funding and assisting terrorists. Yay.

Russians have been actively playing the geopolitics game lately-writing off huge govt debt portions for Cuba and a few other "friendly" regimes in Latin America, Asia (Mongolia, Vietnam, PDRK) and Africa (Angola, Ethiopia, Libya (I think)). There were also attempts to rally the BRICS countries (now including South Africa-somehow I missed when this happened) by creating an alternative to the IMF. In itself this is an interestign move, which is touted by Russian media as major diplomatic blow to the US--but I really wonder how advantageous it is to Russia? The obvious winner is ofc, China-after all it'll be their money fueling this initiative.

Shit has indeed been going down in UA. more details tomorrow, once there's (hopefully) a bit of clarity on what's going on there (too much conflicting info atm)

[Gothos]

Mentalist, on 12 June 2014 - 07:00 PM, said:

I realize this is a well-meaning comment, and I realize there's a large amount of bad blood about this b/w PL and UA, but I'll still ask you to leave UPA out of this. Despite all the political push of the USSR, Nurnberg recognised UPA as WWII combatants, and NOT as collaborationists.

It's definitely a hot topic. I don't endorse what happened in Volyn', just as I hope you don't endorse what Armija Krajowa did in Galicia (to secure a "corridor" from Krakow to Lwow). The massive amount of Russian rhetoric about "bEnderites" (because they can't be bothered to even know who it is they fear/hate) is making many ppl in UA re-evaluate UPA--we're like that, if you keep forsing us to do smth, we're likely to do the opposite, just to spite you for telling us how to live our lives. I don't support the methods of UPA, I certainly feel that theirs is an outdated ideology that doesn't mesh well with our realities, but I see nothing wrong with positive inclusive nationalism, as long as we speak of a "political" rather than an "ethnic" nationalism.

I'd just urge for caution. Embracing UPA ideology (and methods?) could mean that you'd antagonise the US/EU, which would leave you all alone stuck between NATO and Russia, which isn't a position anyone would envy.
Unless it's all only meant as a symbol for UA independance, and not actually looking to do things the old way.

Quote

And I know you have a near-fanatical hatred of Russia, but I will ask you to relax in that sense, because Poland hasn't suffered nearly as much from them as we've had. And the Revolution of Dignity is, amongst many other aspects, an anticolonial revolution. Which means it's genuinely hard for Russians, who have thought of themselves as a ruling but caring "older brothers" to suddenly realize they are viewed as an agressor. I'm not trying to defend them, but Inderstand where they are coming from. It's pretty much the whole world's problem at this point, whether we like it or not, there are a lot of people out there that wish to rewrite history. And this is a reality we have to face, without emotions.

I know you have, and the greater was my astonishment when I was in Dnipropetrovsk that you've not even changed any street names or torn down commie monuments, that your media was dominated by Russian TV and Radio, Russian pop stars and Russian social media. This general air of leaning towards the east, I couldn't understand why - why the people who'd given you the Holodomor were your rolemodels, it looked like. These times I ask myself: is it still the memory of the Commonwealth that pushed you folks away from the west, or was all that just down to oligarch interest and big business keeping connections in the east?

[Mentalist]

Gothos, on 17 July 2014 - 06:25 AM, said:

Mentalist, on 12 June 2014 - 07:00 PM, said:

I realize this is a well-meaning comment, and I realize there's a large amount of bad blood about this b/w PL and UA, but I'll still ask you to leave UPA out of this. Despite all the political push of the USSR, Nurnberg recognised UPA as WWII combatants, and NOT as collaborationists.

It's definitely a hot topic. I don't endorse what happened in Volyn', just as I hope you don't endorse what Armija Krajowa did in Galicia (to secure a "corridor" from Krakow to Lwow). The massive amount of Russian rhetoric about "bEnderites" (because they can't be bothered to even know who it is they fear/hate) is making many ppl in UA re-evaluate UPA--we're like that, if you keep forsing us to do smth, we're likely to do the opposite, just to spite you for telling us how to live our lives. I don't support the methods of UPA, I certainly feel that theirs is an outdated ideology that doesn't mesh well with our realities, but I see nothing wrong with positive inclusive nationalism, as long as we speak of a "political" rather than an "ethnic" nationalism.

I'd just urge for caution. Embracing UPA ideology (and methods?) could mean that you'd antagonise the US/EU, which would leave you all alone stuck between NATO and Russia, which isn't a position anyone would envy.
Unless it's all only meant as a symbol for UA independance, and not actually looking to do things the old way.

Quote

And I know you have a near-fanatical hatred of Russia, but I will ask you to relax in that sense, because Poland hasn't suffered nearly as much from them as we've had. And the Revolution of Dignity is, amongst many other aspects, an anticolonial revolution. Which means it's genuinely hard for Russians, who have thought of themselves as a ruling but caring "older brothers" to suddenly realize they are viewed as an agressor. I'm not trying to defend them, but Inderstand where they are coming from. It's pretty much the whole world's problem at this point, whether we like it or not, there are a lot of people out there that wish to rewrite history. And this is a reality we have to face, without emotions.

I know you have, and the greater was my astonishment when I was in Dnipropetrovsk that you've not even changed any street names or torn down commie monuments, that your media was dominated by Russian TV and Radio, Russian pop stars and Russian social media. This general air of leaning towards the east, I couldn't understand why - why the people who'd given you the Holodomor were your rolemodels, it looked like. These times I ask myself: is it still the memory of the Commonwealth that pushed you folks away from the west, or was all that just down to oligarch interest and big business keeping connections in the east?

Re: UPA.
Very few actively embrace the extremist ideas of UPA. A growing number of Ukrainians (including a quickly-growing number of Russian speakers) embrace teh suggestion that Ukrainian needs to be the only state language. The "language issue" is seen as watershed factor by RF Russians in determining whether a uki is a Bandera or a Russophile (and thus, a "patriot of Rus'").
At the same time, nearly everyone involved with the ATO, be it regulars, volunteers, or contract soldiers are unanimous in the fact that its the govt and in particular the Ministry of Defense bureaucracy who's causing most of the losses and handicaps the ATO the most, since there are surely backroom deals going on. The Revolution isn't finished by a long shot, and once the Russian issue is dealt with, the same people will turn to crooked bureaucrats back in their hometowns, cities and villages, forcing accountability and change.

Re: Russian influence.
Commonwealth's got nothing to do with it--virtually no one remembers that. People in the West have their issues with Pilsudski's Poland and the whole "Lwow jestem polskie miasto" thing doesn't really help. But that's a very minor thing, and it's specific to Galicia, really. Bukovina and Zakarpattya each have their own history.
The much, much bigger issue is Sovietization. Which was essentially a form of colonization, which hit UA and Belarus the hardest, since we were the closest to the culture of the colonizers-Russians. Holodomor and the terrors did a lot to supress and destroy the nationally conscious part of the nation--which is why Western UA became a "bulwark of Ukrainian-ism"--because it was the least assimilated part of the nation.

And Independence was not a major anticolonial shift, the way it was in the Baltics, in Moldova, Central Asia or Kavkaz. Prior to Independence, in 1990 "semi-free" elections, the Rukh nationalists managed to get about 25% of votes-predominantly in the West. The independence vote following GKCHP in Moscow was a deal with the devil-nationalists accepted the Communist vote, in exchange for a promise not to dismantle the existing system.
So in 1991 referendum, people in the "East" (back then everything bar Glaicia, Volyn, Bukovina and Zakarpattya) voted "yes" not because they were nationally-conscious Ukrainians, but because they were promised that independence would make them rich. In the simultaneous presidential election, the Communist party official Kravchuk won everywhere, except the 3 Galician oblasts, which were carried by a rukh candidate Chornovil.
Since then the boundary of de-sovietized ukraine has been shifting, and the latest Revolution is a huge leap forward. But the colonial heritage is still strong. in the South and parts of the East that were the "Wild Field" prior to Russian conquest, Russian history IS their history. Kherson, Mykolayiv, Odessa-these were build by Potemkin for Catherine II. It'd be stupid to deny this part of history. It's up to us to frame it in proper context, though.

As for Soviet names... I expect those will be around until the Soviet-era pensioners will die out. Once we purge the sentiment of a "brotherly" Russian peoples from ourselves (something that the war is doing marvelously well), the changes will come. They must come from the ground up to be effective though--executive order won't do much more than cause resentment.

[Mentalist]

Um.

Shit.

So< I was gonna write another long, detailed post about how after retreating from Slov'yansk, terrorists abandoned 4 other major cities. about how Ukrainian troops broke through and relieved the troops in Luhansk airport, essentially cutting off the city from the West, as well as from the North.

How the fighting around Donetsk ground to a halt, how the new hotspot is the area south of the Torez-Snizhne-Shakhtarsk anglomeration, where Ukrainian troops are sandwiched between terrorists and Russian troops shelling them across the border, with increased reports of Russian regulars crossing the border to strike at our encircled units who are trying to hold teh border to cut off supply of materiel.

About how Ukraine lost another transport ship which was shot down at a height of 6.5 clicks, possibly from Russian side of the border. About how the same day, while ATO suspended any air flights, an unknown plane bombed Snizhne, and there's suspicion it was done by Russsians to blame Kyyiv.

About the video that surfaced yesterday, taken by Russians about Russian artillery firing across the border.


But, none of that really matters anymore.

Because as of about half an hour ago, there are reports that a Malaysian airlines plane Amsterdam-Kuala Lumpur, a 777 flying at the height of about 10 klicks crashed around shakhtarsk. Earlier today, terrorists were boasting they "acquired" anti-air systems allowing them to shoot down planes from extreme heights.

There were 280 passengers and 15 crew on board. My condolences to their families.
supposedly 50 of the passengers were US citizens.

I don't know what will happen now. Earlier today there were also reports of "polite little green men" crossing into Luhansk oblast, and a few news outlets have reported that one of them was detained by Ukrainian military and it turns out it was a Russian conscript.

I fear we are on verge of a real war. I have no idea what will happen now, and what kind of a reaction there'll be.

[Vengeance]

Mentalist, on 17 July 2014 - 03:47 PM, said:

Um.

Shit.

So< I was gonna write another long, detailed post about how after retreating from Slov'yansk, terrorists abandoned 4 other major cities. about how Ukrainian troops broke through and relieved the troops in Luhansk airport, essentially cutting off the city from the West, as well as from the North.

How the fighting around Donetsk ground to a halt, how the new hotspot is the area south of the Torez-Snizhne-Shakhtarsk anglomeration, where Ukrainian troops are sandwiched between terrorists and Russian troops shelling them across the border, with increased reports of Russian regulars crossing the border to strike at our encircled units who are trying to hold teh border to cut off supply of materiel.

About how Ukraine lost another transport ship which was shot down at a height of 6.5 clicks, possibly from Russian side of the border. About how the same day, while ATO suspended any air flights, an unknown plane bombed Snizhne, and there's suspicion it was done by Russsians to blame Kyyiv.

About the video that surfaced yesterday, taken by Russians about Russian artillery firing across the border.


But, none of that really matters anymore.

Because as of about half an hour ago, there are reports that a Malaysian airlines plane Amsterdam-Kuala Lumpur, a 777 flying at the height of about 10 klicks crashed around shakhtarsk. Earlier today, terrorists were boasting they "acquired" anti-air systems allowing them to shoot down planes from extreme heights.

There were 280 passengers and 15 crew on board. My condolences to their families.
supposedly 50 of the passengers were US citizens.

I don't know what will happen now. Earlier today there were also reports of "polite little green men" crossing into Luhansk oblast, and a few news outlets have reported that one of them was detained by Ukrainian military and it turns out it was a Russian conscript.

I fear we are on verge of a real war. I have no idea what will happen now, and what kind of a reaction there'll be.

Just going out on a limb and say that shooting down an civilian passenger jet filled full of different nationalities is not going create positive reactions.

[Terez]

I have to admit that I have not been following this lately and now officially have no idea wtf has been going on. I was going to post that before I heard about the plane crash. Now I am going to have to go back and read all of Mentalist's posts on this thread or something. The only news I have been getting on Ukraine lately is from Valentina Lisitsa's Twitter feed, and she seems convinced that any and all Russian aggression is just Western propaganda. (She is a pianist who was born in Ukraine, has one Polish parent, but her sympathies are incredibly Russian. And she lives in North Carolina, god help us.)

[Mentalist]

Vengeance, on 17 July 2014 - 05:09 PM, said:

Mentalist, on 17 July 2014 - 03:47 PM, said:

Um.

Shit.

So< I was gonna write another long, detailed post about how after retreating from Slov'yansk, terrorists abandoned 4 other major cities. about how Ukrainian troops broke through and relieved the troops in Luhansk airport, essentially cutting off the city from the West, as well as from the North.

How the fighting around Donetsk ground to a halt, how the new hotspot is the area south of the Torez-Snizhne-Shakhtarsk anglomeration, where Ukrainian troops are sandwiched between terrorists and Russian troops shelling them across the border, with increased reports of Russian regulars crossing the border to strike at our encircled units who are trying to hold teh border to cut off supply of materiel.

About how Ukraine lost another transport ship which was shot down at a height of 6.5 clicks, possibly from Russian side of the border. About how the same day, while ATO suspended any air flights, an unknown plane bombed Snizhne, and there's suspicion it was done by Russsians to blame Kyyiv.

About the video that surfaced yesterday, taken by Russians about Russian artillery firing across the border.


But, none of that really matters anymore.

Because as of about half an hour ago, there are reports that a Malaysian airlines plane Amsterdam-Kuala Lumpur, a 777 flying at the height of about 10 klicks crashed around shakhtarsk. Earlier today, terrorists were boasting they "acquired" anti-air systems allowing them to shoot down planes from extreme heights.

There were 280 passengers and 15 crew on board. My condolences to their families.
supposedly 50 of the passengers were US citizens.

I don't know what will happen now. Earlier today there were also reports of "polite little green men" crossing into Luhansk oblast, and a few news outlets have reported that one of them was detained by Ukrainian military and it turns out it was a Russian conscript.

I fear we are on verge of a real war. I have no idea what will happen now, and what kind of a reaction there'll be.

Just going out on a limb and say that shooting down an civilian passenger jet filled full of different nationalities is not going create positive reactions.

welp, there's already 3 sides playing the blame game. Uki govt, Russian govt and the terrorists.

there's a hell of a lot of evidence that it's the terrorirsts (they were boasting their AA systems this morning, in that area, AND Strelkov reported that they shot down an AN -26transport plane at teh exact tsame time the contact was lost with the 777.

But I keep getting unconfirmed feeds that live on CNN some DOD person said they have satellite proof that the missile was fired from Russia proper... so ionno.

Terrorists got their hands on the black boxes. They are going to Moscow.

Russian media Life News is spinning a story that the 777 was shot down by a Uki fighter, which was then shot down by terrorists. yeah, that's the angle they've picked.

Did I mention how they've recently put out a fake news story that ATO troops crucified a son of one of the DNR fighters after they liberated Slov'yansk? and they tied his mother to a tank and drove around the city for hours?

[Mentalist]

Jesus, 80 children....

Reports that Dutch, British, French and US citizens on board.

There needs to be serious reaction about this.

[Gust Hubb]

Why...

Gods, I never stop getting sick upon hearing these reports. You'd think I'd be numb by now, but I can't stop thinking of my own flight the other day. 80 kids....

[Gothos]

This.... I am appalled, if not surprised. This is russian politics, folks. Cue now pinning the entire thing on Ukraine. Nothing changed since the soviet union. Nothing.

[Tsundoku]

28 Australians apparently. Plus a good portion of the people on the plane were on their way to an AIDS conference in Moelbourne. Many of them top-level researchers and administrators.

The person who could have invented a cure for AIDS could have died on that plane.

Well fucking done, Russia. Our PM wasn't impressed by their bullshit either. It's going to be very, very difficult to drum up any outside support for Russia or their cats paws in eastern Ukraine now.

Putin's smartest move now would be to apologise profusely, back the fuck off, cut off supplies to the rebels, pull Russian troops out or at least back, and cooperate fully with an investigation.

But we know that's pretty much the exact opposite of what's going to happen. They've being telling blatant lies all this time and sticking to them in spite of hard evidence to the contrary, so why should they stop now?

The mood here: very angry. Yes I know we should have been that way all along, but like history has always shown, sometimes it takes something drastic happening close to home (as it were) to galvanise people. Especially over something so far away. Let's see what happens from here.

Your move, Mr Putin.

This post has been edited by Sombra: 18 July 2014 - 11:12 AM

[Terez]

This has only happened a few times, a civilian airline being shot down accidentally or otherwise. Culprits, ironically:


Israel (1973, Libyan Arab Airlines Flight 114, Tripoli to Cairo via Benghazi, 108 killed)
USSR (1978, Korean Airlines Flight 902, Paris to Seoul via Anchorage, emergency landing, 2 killed)
USSR (1983, Korean Airlines Flight 007, NYC to Seoul via Anchorage, 269 killed including a US Congressman)
USA (1988, Iran Air Flight 655, Tehran to Dubai, 290 killed)
Ukraine (2001, just after 9/11, Siberian Airlines Flight 1812, Tel Aviv to Novosibirsk, 78 killed)

Edit: there were a few others, as it turns out. I saw a news segment on the ones listed above and thought they were the only ones. Culprits from the time period above include various African actors and perhaps NATO.

This post has been edited by Terez: 18 July 2014 - 12:52 PM

[Tsundoku]

Well, I dare say we won't ever get a definitive answer after Putin's Puppets contaminated the scene by looting (you sick fucks), disrupting investigators and making off with the black boxes. We all know what happened. Unfortunately it won't ever be proved.

[Gust Hubb]

What would a black box tell us anyway? Seems like it would be a brief bought of screaming before it all cut off. Are there cameras?

[Mentalist]

Sombra, on 19 July 2014 - 11:26 AM, said:

Well, I dare say we won't ever get a definitive answer after Putin's Puppets contaminated the scene by looting (you sick fucks), disrupting investigators and making off with the black boxes. We all know what happened. Unfortunately it won't ever be proved.

Fortunately, they can't steal satellites.

Supposedly, Lavrov and Kerry reached some kind of consensus re: black boxes. The catch-going back to Geneva accord (i.e, attempt to reach a "ceasefire"). yes, okay.

Meanwhile, a large chunk of Ukrainian military, tasked with securing the border is now stuck in a thin corridor between terrorist positions and the Russian border. And they are being decimated-shot at from both sides. Yes, Russians are shooting at Ukrainian military. From Russian soil (or rather, the 2 km-wide strip of "neutral ground"). No, the politicians in Kyiv aren't doing shit all about this. Yes, I am rather livid about the fact--also about the fact that the National Security and Defense Council omits the actual casualties numbers and cheerfully reports successes everywhere. The only bright side here is that following yesterday's plane fiasco, terrorists have sent about 4 BUKs across the border to Russia, which allowed Ukrainian fighter/bombers to bomb the living crap out of their positions

But apparently, the HQ bigwigs are using this as a distraction for the bulk of separatist troops, while their centreas are being cut off. Yesterday, after heavy fighting, our troops entered Luhansk form the south-East, unblocking the airport (where a platoon of paratroopers has been holding out for several weeks now). The outlying villages along the main highway connecting Luhansk and Donetsk are now under Ukrainian control, prompting another bout of hysteria from Strelkov, the "minister of defense" of DNR, as he now claims to be cut off from Russia.

There's also been intense fighting around Lysychansk-severodonetsk-Rubizhne anglomeration, which is right now the terrorists northernmost outlying stronghold. efforts continue to cut it off from the south, bouth from Luhansk oblast (the region of Slavyanoserbsk) and from Donetsk oblast (where the thrust is from the city of Artemivsk, with the "Donbass" batallion leading the charge). The main goal is to break through the terrorist defences to the city of Pervomaysk (almost directly south of the anglomeration, and complete the enirclement. yestrday terrorist have set fire to the Lysychansk oil refinery-one of the 5 oil refineries in the country, the only one in the East, and, ironically enough, the one owned by the Russians.

Going back to the plane: the OSCE group was given "an hour" by DNR to assess the crash site. When an OSCE inspector tried to venture outside the "permitted zone", a "visibly drunk rebel barred the way and fired in the air" (direct quote from OSCE spokesperson). SO yeah. Also, looting. Also: people using the deceased's credit cards.

Oh, and yesterday Strelkov released the following gem, suggestign that the bodies decomposed "way too quickly", suggesting they already dead, even before the plane was shot down. Yeah.

[Terez]

Gust Hubb, on 19 July 2014 - 04:33 PM, said:

What would a black box tell us anyway? Seems like it would be a brief bought of screaming before it all cut off. Are there cameras?

It could tell us the exact location of the plane when it was hit, and the cockpit voice recorders could tell us if they were contacted or warned in any way before being shot down. There are also some other data collected that could shed light on the situation.

[Terez]

Thanks to Mentalist for all the posts. I finally got to read them all and I am a little less ignorant than before. My eyes glazed over a few times from all the Ukrainian and Russian proper nouns, though, so I still have a hard time keeping everything straight. You would think that after a year or more of trying to read and translate Polish I would be used to it, but apparently I'm only used to Polish spelling.

In 1983, the USSR obtained the black boxes for KAL007 and did not allow an open investigation. Yeltsin handed the recordings over years later.

[Terez]

Many apologies for the triple post, but I was wondering what Mentalist would think of this article:

http://www.thenation...ievs-atrocities

Usually I find The Nation to be an excellent publication which sheds light on issues often neglected in our political media, but after having read Mentalist's posts in this thread, I was able to pick out many things in the article which were presented misleadingly and out of context. For example, he refers repeatedly to the "Odessa massacre" as if it were an isolated event, and makes no mention of the fact that it started with a peaceful unity march being attacked by separatists. I checked the Wikipedia page, which appears to be well-sourced, and it matches pretty well with what Mentalist wrote at the time of the event. There are several other examples. The comments seem divided between Russians praising the writer for telling the truth and Ukrainians shaming him for writing such a propaganda piece and suggesting he was paid by the Russians to write it.