Russia - threadbanned users in OP

Yes, they are keeping it at 20% for now.

Will South Ossetia actually hold this often talked about referendum though, I doubt it.

US not messing around:

"The US president Joe Biden is due to announce the release of a record 1m barrels of oil from US strategic stockpiles every day for the next six months in an attempt to dampen soaring fuel prices in the wake of the attack on Ukraine. The White House said:

After consultation with allies and partners, the president will announce the largest release of oil reserves in history, putting one million additional barrels on the market per day on average – every day – for the next six months.

The scale of this release is unprecedented: the world has never had a release of oil reserves at this one million per day rate for this length of time. This record release will provide a historic amount of supply to serve as bridge until the end of the year when domestic production ramps up.

Agence France-Presse reports that Biden was scheduled to lay out the details in a speech later on Thursday. The release will dwarf earlier uses of the strategic stockpile announced by the Biden administration in tandem with other countries on 1 March – following the Russian invasion, and also last year in response to rising inflation."

Apart from firing some parting rockets at it they are done with Kyiv. Not sure these veterans would be up to much either.

That was released yesterday. Some US veterans commented on it saying, what are the doing. One guy said the three solders where competing who could take out the traffic light. I believe he was right.

Ah grand. Give lots of young people weapons.....tben they march on the Kremlin!!

Sure, but as Putin keeps telling his people, this is a 'special military operation', not a war. This means Putin can only continue with the annual 'peacetime' conscription, not full a mobilisation draft it would destroy his own narrative. Plus, the Russian people would expect conscripts and reserves to be used only in wartime, not for a 'special military operation'. This is why the Russian government have already said that these 135k conscripts won't be going to Ukraine and why there was already a bit of a backlash/backtrack in Russia when it was discovered that conscripts had ended up in Ukraine early on.

Now, obviously, this is Putin we are talking about, I'm sure plenty of them will 'accidentally' be sent to Ukraine, but in the general case he does still have to play along to his narrative within Russia itself. I don't see them ending up in mass in Ukraine, more than likely as mentioned, they'll end up replacing troops in Syria/Georgia/Kuril islands etc. so those troops can be brought back to Ukraine.

Russia wants its oil paid for in Rubles? Will the West call his bluff?

Three little problems:

1. Oil is priced globally in Dollars. Paying in Rouble involves exchange rate risks, and I am by no means certain if the buyer will bear all this risk.
2. Ultimately Western importers are exchanging Dollars and Euro for oil and gas. Use of the Rouble is just adding an extra intermediate transaction cost.
3. If Vlad keeps the receipts in Roubles, then he is making a pretty stupid decision. But sooner or later he will have to sell much of the Roubles, this will depreciate the currency and essentially reverse any Rouble appreciation caused by Western purchases of Roubles at the start of the process.

I'm a little baffled why people don't see this. Don't let Vlad turn a pretty pointless move into a big issue.

I wasn't claiming they were getting acute radiation poisoning; just pointing out the dangers and mechanisms of radiation exposure to them in the area. There are also cases of chronic radiation poisoning mentioned in some literature; so that's also a possibility although probably not likely.

More likely is that exposure to cold, poor sanitation, poor nutrition, anxiety and stress of occupying an enemy territory (especially if they're aware it is Chernobyl and potentially dangerous), and so on have taken a toll on morale and general fitness.

Or it's possible there's no merit to the story whatsoever and they just withdrew to be redeployed somewhere.

Not like this poor divil

A couple of interesting tweets I've come across today. Note that they're both somewhat graphic; so be aware if you click into the images:

A Russian tank which fell off a bridge and sank early in the war was recovered; seems like the entire crew were trapped under the tank and drowned:

The Ukraine Armed Forces reportedly tried to conduct an airlift from Mariupol using an Mi-8 helicopter. The images suggest it was a medical evacuation flight containing wounded soldiers from Mariupol; and it was unfortunately brought down along the coast. Really brave mission to undertake by the pilots; I suppose it's easy to claim it was reckless considering Russia has total control of the surrounding area.

Be aware of clicking through; some of the other photos in the replies are very graphic: