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[W:855]interesting images

Rogue Valley

Lead or get out of the way
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Picture shot with a phone camera from inside a van in occupied eastern Ukraine (December, 2017). The semitrailer truck ahead with the red cross and number 200 is a (Груз 200/Gruz 200/Cargo 200) Russian truck that exclusively travels between occupied eastern Ukraine and Russia. It's cargo is the bodies of Russians (soldiers/mercenaries) KIA in eastern Ukraine. Cargo 200 is the Russian military designation for such a vehicle. Rumor has it that each Kremlin supplied coffin contains 200 ounces of zinc. A Ukrainian government van painted with red crosses and (Груз 200/Gruz 200/Cargo 200) placards on its windows does the same with Ukrainian military KIA. The Ukrainian bodies/remains are collected by a volunteer group called the Black Tulips. It is very dangerous work due to mines, un-exploded ordnance etc. Since 2014, an estimated 10,000+ have been killed in the war in eastern Ukraine.


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Above is a test solar farm located in the Chernobyl, Ukraine restricted zone. The restricted zone is approximately the size of Luxembourg. The electrical transmission infrastructure is already in place from when the destroyed Chernobyl nuclear plant was active. Tests have proven that everything works as intended and it has been proposed to convert the entire Chernobyl restricted zone to tracts of solar-panel farms. Since the rows of solar panels cannot be anchored to posts in the ground (that would stir up too much contaminated dust), they are affixed to concrete railroad ties that simply lay on the ground. The weight is such that nothing moves. Bids for tracts of solar-panel land will be announced during 2018. Investors are impressed with this proposal to generate power from the sun in the contaminated restricted zone that would otherwise remain abandoned/useless for hundreds of years.
 
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The US has permanently assigned a RQ-4B Global Hawk reconnaissance UAV to fly over Russia occupied eastern Ukraine and the Black Sea waters near occupied Crimea. It typically gathers video/sensor data from an altitude of 52,000 feet.



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Flight path of a USAF RQ-4B Global Hawk drone over occupied eastern Ukraine at an altitude of 52,100 feet.
 
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Rogue Valley:

I am confused. Is there a point to this thread that I am missing or is it just random musings about Ukraine? How does one debate the international politics of a string of posted pictures and their written descriptions? You have me baffled.

Cheers.
Evilroddy.
 
Re: interesting images

Rogue Valley:

I am confused. Is there a point to this thread that I am missing or is it just random musings about Ukraine? How does one debate the international politics of a string of posted pictures and their written descriptions? You have me baffled.

Cheers.
Evilroddy.

I've lived in Ukraine. A fascinating country.
 
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Above is what used to be a McDonalds franchise in the occupied eastern Ukraine city of Donetsk. It was 'nationalized' (stolen) by leaders of the pro-Russia Donetsk/DNR government. It is now called DonMak.



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Canadian doctors are teaching novice Ukrainian military medics how to suture (stitch) wounds by first practicing on bananas.
 
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Structure of pro-Russia forces in Donbas (Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts (regions) in occupied eastern Ukraine.
Pro-Russia Ukraine paramilitaries are (since 2014) always the front line troops. Russian battalions and armor are (so far) always kept in reserve as Quick Reaction Forces (QRF).


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Wagner is usually the first choice of Moscow for kontraktniki (contract) hybrid-warfare mercenaries in occupied Donbas.
PMC Wagner owner Dmitry Utkin reports directly to Russian General Yevgeny Nikiforov, (call sign “Tambov”).
Their foremost task is security for Moscow's installed LNR/DNR puppet-government officials.
 
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Languages used in Ukraine and their percentages by region. No matter the region, all official documents and signage (street signs, etc.) are in Ukrainian.
There is also a mixed (macaronic) Ukrainian/Russian hybrid language called Surzhyk that is very commonly used everywhere in public.
The Ukrainian language has more in common with Polish than Russian, although Ukrainian, Russian, and Belorussian are all east Slavic languages and mutually intelligible.
Besides Russian, Polish is the most used foreign language. English is rapidly growing in popularity and is an elective language in schools. Universities offer all courses in Ukrainian, Russian, and English.
Within the next decade, Ukraine will transition from the eastern Cyrillic alphabet to the Western Roman/Latin alphabet.
 
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Viktor Ageyev, a Russian detained near Luhansk in June 2017, sits with his mother Svetlana Ageyeva on 22 January 2018 in a courtroom in Starobilsk which is about 100 miles north of occupied Luhansk.
Ageyev was captured in the ATO theater (occupied eastern Ukraine) in Russian military uniform. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison for terrorism and carrying a weapon in a war zone. Ageyev admitted
to the court that he is a Russian serviceman who joined the LPR forces in March 2017, and served as a machine gunner. Russia has denied his military status. Ukraine considers all Russian military POWs be to terrorists.
He will eventually be exchanged for a Ukrainian POW.


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Another 50 soldiers from the 3rd Canadian Division and their equipment arrived in Ukraine last night. There are now ~250 Canadian soldiers training and mentoring the Ukrainian military.
 
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This is a blog.
 
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US Navy EP-3E 157326 FARMR26 departed Crete Naval Base/Souda Bay at 0555zulu - Black Sea mission

Russian jet flies within 5 feet of US Navy plane, Pentagon says
By Ryan Browne and Zachary Cohen
CNN/ABC News
Jan 29, 2018

A Russian Su-27 jet performed an unsafe intercept of a US Navy surveillance plane while it was flying in international airspace over the Black Sea Monday, three defense officials told CNN. The American pilots reported that the Russian jet came within 5 feet of the US plane, according to two of the officials. The Russian jet's action forced the US Navy aircraft to end its mission prematurely, one of the officials said. The US State Department issued a statement late Monday accusing the Russians of "flagrantly violating existing agreements and international law." "This interaction was determined to be unsafe due to the SU-27 closing to within five feet and crossing directly through the EP-3's flight path, causing the EP-3 to fly through the SU-27's jet wash," US Naval Forces Europe spokesman, Capt. Pamela Kunze told CNN.

Several unsafe interactions between Russian and US military forces have taken place near the Black Sea. Russian, US and NATO forces operate in close proximity to one another in the area, particularly since Russia boosted its military presence in the region following its annexation of Crimea in 2014. The US Navy has upped its presence in the area in recent years. CNN military analyst John Kirby said the Russian jet's action was "inexcusable, provocative & potentially fatal." He added that "while it is difficult to determine the degree to which senior levels in the chain of command are involved in the specific conduct of any particular intercept, one thing is absolutely clear: The Kremlin desires to challenge US military patrols in and above the Black Sea and elsewhere." "It's a policy we must presume the Russian defense establishment is acting concertedly and aggressively to pursue. Russian military leaders are known for a lot of things. Independent thinking is not one of them," he said.

Since the illegal Russian annexation (and weaponization) of Crimea, US naval and air assets are either cruising in or flying over the Black Sea on a daily basis.

One of these days, some Russian yahoo pilot is going to severely miscalculate or overestimate his abilities.
 
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Above you see a military KUNG Ural truck and a Mitsubishi Pajero SUV with the familiar black Russian military license plate (DK0377) in the foreground.
The location is in occupied Donetsk city, eastern Ukraine, on H21 by the Windmill Company grain silos.
 
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Russian-occupied "Transnistria" is that thin red line in Moldova along its border with Ukraine. It's pretty far from the "edge of Europe" as Putin claimed.
 
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The Ukrainian language has more in common with Polish than Russian, although Ukrainian, Russian, and Belorussian are all east Slavic languages and mutually intelligible.
Besides Russian, Polish is the most used foreign language. English is rapidly growing in popularity and is an elective language in schools. Universities offer all courses in Ukrainian, Russian, and English.
Within the next decade, Ukraine will transition from the eastern Cyrillic alphabet to the Western Roman/Latin alphabet.

The Ukrainian language is my native one and I perfectly know also Russian. As for the Polish I can read it freely. So I cannot agree with your opinion that Ukrainian more in common with Polish than Russian. Of course, there are many common words sounds almost the same in Polish and Ukrainian, but so far the Ukrainian and Russian languages are the most similar to each other. And let's not forgot, that Polish have Latin alphabet and Ukrainian, like Russian have Cyrillic one. And your assumption that Ukraine will change its language code within the next decade seems to me at least too optimistic.
 
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The Ukrainian language is my native one and I perfectly know also Russian. As for the Polish I can read it freely. So I cannot agree with your opinion that Ukrainian more in common with Polish than Russian. Of course, there are many common words sounds almost the same in Polish and Ukrainian, but so far the Ukrainian and Russian languages are the most similar to each other. And let's not forgot, that Polish have Latin alphabet and Ukrainian, like Russian have Cyrillic one. And your assumption that Ukraine will change its language code within the next decade seems to me at least too optimistic.

Concerning mutual intelligibility, Ukrainian and Belorussian have the most in common. Concerning lexical similarity Ukrainian has more in common with West Slavic languages such as Polish and Czech.
 
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Above is a Russian made BPM-97 Vysrel used by the Russian PMC Wagner and 'disabled' near Sanzharivka (Donetsk region).
 
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This past January, the Ukrainian Antonov Company was hired by SpaceX to deliver a very large/heavy crucial part of Falcon Heavy, crossing 3,600 km in 4 hrs, just in time for the scheduled launch on 6 February 2018.

The Antonov An-225 Mriya (Dream) is the largest aircraft in the world.
 
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Rogue Valley; said:
Above is a Russian made BPM-97 Vysrel used by the Russian PMC Wagner and 'disabled' near Sanzharivka (Donetsk region).

You missed one letter in the name of the combat vehicle. It should not be called "Vysrel", but "Vystrel".
 
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Boring blog.
 
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He will eventually be exchanged for a Ukrainian POW/US trained terrorist.

US propaganda has once again fooled the world into thinking that it didn't engineer the overthrow of the Ukraine government. More Operation Gladio.
 
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After being shot by a sniper on 30 July 2017 near Maryinka, Yuriy Kushnir died of his wounds on 18 February 2018
at the Kyiv Military Hospital. Sgt. Kushnir (39) served in the 54th Separate Mechanized Brigade.



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Sabina Halytska, 23yo Head Nurse of the Medic Company of Ukraine's 10th Mountain Assault Brigade, was killed on 20 February 2018
near the town of Krymske by an Anti-Tank Guided Missile (ATGM) that hit their vehicle as they provided assistance to civilians.
 
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Oleksandr Sivko (19) killed by Russian sniper bullet near Shakhta Butivka, in eastern Ukraine on Feb 25, 2018.
Served in the 1st Battalion of the 95th Air Assault Brigade.
 
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The oblasts (regions) of Ukraine and the number of KIA Ukrainian soldiers from each oblast. March 2014 - February 2018.
 
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