Ukrainian troops die in ambush as crash investigators reach MH17 site

[bemildred]

Source: Standard Online

Ten Ukrainian soldiers were killed when pro-Russian rebels ambushed a column of government troops close to where Flight MH17 crashed.

The overnight attack by separatists happened in the town of Shakhtarsk, which has been at the centre of sustained battles for several days.

As many as 20 people altogether were killed in the clash as the government paratroopers fought back after their unit was fired on as they were moving to a new position.

A military spokesman confirmed that at least ten of the dead were soldiers. The rebels claim they destroyed more than 30 vehicles, while unverified video footage showed bodies around a burning vehicle.



Read more: http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/ukrainian-troops-die-in-ambush-as-crash-investigators-reach-mh17-site-9642468.html

[Paolo123]

1. They have nobody to blame but themselves

Russia, the rebels, and the dutch have asked for a cease-fire in the area. Ukraine has instead used this as an opportunity to launch an offensive.

[cosmicone]

2. It is a Svoboda and Right Sektor government

and most of its news releases are misinformation or twisted in such a way as to make the freedom fighters look bad.

I wouldn't be surprised when we find out that Ukraine was using passenger planes as human shields and using them to send shadowing fighter jets in the rebel area. This is why they altered the course of MH17 and the missile launcher hit the wrong target as the fighter jets maneuvered away.

However, it was hilarious to read from several frothing-mouth people.

[ballyhoo]

4. That's one of my two theories. The other one

is MH17 was hit by an AAM but the cover story was a SAM to cause instant deflection of what really happened. I have another theory that fits both. But I can't say it here because of the Alerters. The Hague will figure it all out. I just hope they do it themselves without help from anyone else! Keep up the good work. The truth shall be known.

[cosmicone]

5. I know about the alerters

Some people have found out the weakness of the jury system and can get people to stop posting by coordinating the alert and joining the jury. Sad to see censorship of opinions on a democratic board.

One way the jury system can be improved is to not allow any people who have posted in that particular section (i.e. Israel/Palestine or LBN or LGBT) for the last 90 days to be in the jury pool. That way people with biases and vested interests are somewhat eliminated.

[ballyhoo]

6. Good idea. I think it would be

easier on management to make little plastic balls (irony) of all the posters and have them spun in a big ball with a turner (like the lottery) so that the jury picks are real picks. AND, upon one person not being able to serve, the ball is spun again. If a second ball spinning is required due to another absence or whatever, the jury is called a tie and the alert is overruled. Course, the tech guy here may not be able to find the equipment for such an idea. Also, there can be no PM's during the time a jury is selected until the decision is made. That way they can be no influence exercised by those with an agenda.

[ColesCountyDem]

9. Jury selection is entirely random.

What an incredibly paranoid theory about the alert and jury system.

[cosmicone]

10. It is not random. The opportunity is served

to all those who are online, who are eligible to serve and those who refresh their DU screens and the jury pool is first come, first served. The only people not so served are the ones blacklisted by the poster of the offending entry.

So, 5 people who are all online can, with IMs, decide that one of them will alert and the other 4 will keep refreshing their screens until they are invited to be on the jury. It is quite simple actually.

All I said was -- make the people who usually post in that particular section ineligible to serve and create a jury pool from other sections to get an unbiased and non-coordinated jury.

[ColesCountyDem]

14. Your math is rather bizarre.

There are 216,429 registered users here, and the chances that even 2% are online at any given moment are quite good. That means that 4,329 people are potentially in the jury pool. Assuming that even hald don't refresh their screens, that's still a jury pool of 2,164 people.

Your theory about 'fixing' or 'gaming' the jury system is paranoid in the extreme.

[cosmicone]

15. People who are actively looking to serve have an advantage

because they keep refreshing over and over until they see an invite. Not a lot of people want to serve either. Increase the number from 4 people wanting to serve to 8 or 9 and many of them will get through.

Calling it paranoia is the last refuge of someone devoid of imagination.

[ColesCountyDem]

17. "...Not a lot of people want to serve either...."

You've done a scientific survey to determine this, of course?

Calling it 'the last refuge of someone devoid of imagination' is proof positive of a lack of understanding of randomness and probability.

My numbers work, and yours don't. It's that simple.

[cosmicone]

18. Like the old saying goes ...

There are liars, damn liars and statisticians.

[ColesCountyDem]

19. A non-answer to the question I posed. n/t

[cosmicone]

20. Since you insist on the last word

I shall now stop responding or this shall never end.

[ColesCountyDem]

21. Excellent choice.

You did 'respond', but consistently failed to answer, so leaving the field is the prudent choice.

[TT_Progress]

12. Actually sounds like they may have been doing so

Note: This is not conspiracy. It is discussing a BBC report that was removed. Draw your own conclusions

Personally I think the people on the ground may have drawn innacurate conclusions (assuming the jet that was near the airplane had shot it) but there does seem to be some potential evidence that there were some jet forays that had used civilian jets to cover as they traveled to the bombing site, which in itself is not a great thing.

There is a video from several months ago where someone is complaining and speaking concerns about it.

It was also reported on the BBC last week by one of their reporters, eyewitness reports, and the article was quickly removed from the site. But due to caching you can still view it.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/deleted-bbc-report-ukrainian-fighter-jet-shot-down-mhi7-donetsk-eyewitnesses/5393631

The report with english captions here:

[ColesCountyDem]

3. Major Putin needs to abide by the Budapest Memorandum of Security Assurance.

His government needs to quit interfering in what is a PURELY Ukranian affair, but Crimea proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that he has no intention of doing so.

[christx30]

7. A cold war empire doesn't just build itself.

It takes work.

[ColesCountyDem]

8. Indeed it does, and Major Putin's been a very busy little worker bee. n/t

[happyslug]

11. What happens next to your border affects you.

I know I am talking ancient History, but during the Mexican Revolution of 1912-1920, Pancho Villa was supplied from the US and then attack a supply point in the US. The US went in BEFORE that raid (the US occupied Veracruz April to November 1914, Villa only attacked in 1916)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_occupation_of_Veracruz

Villa attack New Mexico in 1916:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pancho_Villa#Attack_on_New_Mexico

Such cross borders incidents are common when you are next to a country in Revolt or Revolution. Thus for Putin to stay out of the Ukraine is like asking him not to breath or to say to someone in up state New York NOT to breath any air that came from Canada.

Lets look how other countries treat countries under stress. Israel and the West Bank and Gaza are two well known example and Israel refuses to stay out of both. During the late 1970s Vietnam saw what the Khmer Rouge were during in Cambodia and intervened. India has moved into Bangladesh several times since Bangladesh was no longer East Pakistan. Pakistan and Russia have intervene in Afghanistan before and after the Soviet Invasion and occupation of 1979 to 1989.

Sorry, as long as fighting is occurring in the Ukraine, it affects Russia, and for Russia to do nothing is something NO country in such a situation will do. The real issue is what Putin does, so far he has refused to send in troops which is more the US has done in similar situations, as seen in the intervention in Cambodia in 1970, in addition to intervention in Mexico in 1914 and 1916-1918.

[cosmicone]

13. Very well-reasoned and rational post

Too bad some are so blind with Russia hatred that they fail to see it.

Also, let's not forget that Kennedy was ready to start a nuclear war over stationing of missiles in Cuba. Somehow it is ok for the US to put missiles all around Russia but it is not ok for Russia to do the same. We are exceptional!

[Igel]

16. Yes.

The problem is that the fighting keeps taking longer and longer and longer.

Take the capture of a neighborhood ("populated point"--could be a village, but in this case it's a small village that was engulfed by a city) on the western outskirts of Donets'k. It took a couple of days.

The Ukr forces used hundreds of troops and 40 pieces of armor to take what amounts to a large subdivision. In so doing, they faced guided antitank weapons, RPGs, artillery, APCs, armored fighting vehicles, rocket launchers, anti-aircraft systems (MANPADs, Strela-4, and Buk M1) and a couple of tank platoons. With UAV surveillance by the rebels. It's possible that they have TOS or other more modern guided rocket launchers.

Three months ago the DPR didn't have so much as a tank. They had no artillery. They had a couple of APCs that they had captured from the Ukr forces. Antitank weapons were first used about a week ago--in spite of the fact they'd have been handy against Ukrainian tanks for the last two months.

The DPR is entirely landlocked by Ukraine and by Russia. They have more armored vehicles now than they did a month ago. They have captured no new territory or Ukr military bases. Without all the apparent resupply and the introduction of additional kinds of weapons this would have been long over and Russia would have had peace on its border. Many of the AKs captured by the Ukr forces are upgraded and revised models introduced in the '90s and never possessed by Ukraine. One weapon was finally made available for the first time to Russian forces in March of this year and aren't available for export. The rebels had them in April. As Tymchuk said, they're not facing just a bunch of rebels. They're facing pretty much whatever the Russian army has. And if you look at what territory the rebels have ceded and where the really harsh fighting is, that's about the only conclusion you can draw--part of the Russian/Ukr border, main roads leading to those parts of the border, they matter. Without those resupply lines, the DPR/LPR "Novorossiya" and Greater Russia (just like "Greater Serbia&quot project fails. And it'll make it harder for the Russians doing the shit-stirring to go back home. (Did you hear that the asst. minister of external affairs for the LPR was killed yesterday? A young man. Who was still holding his position as a leader of the Eurasian movement in southern Russia even as he served the "independent" LPR. By "Southern Russia" I http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Federal_District.)

This "revolution" would be like the French Revolution if, instead of Robespierre, it were run by somebody named "Mike Chamberlain" with an assistant who served as assistant overseas minister for the King of England, funded by the British exchequery, and had as its goal the return of Normandy to Britain. It's increasingly--since March--a franchise of the FSB and the ONF and the Russian-speakesr on the ground (or in the ground) are just the tools.

Note that the EU has apparently decided quietly to allow arms transfer to Ukraine. Russia's pitching a fit. Some of the systems are covered by non-proliferation regs if not treaties. Since Russia has denied *any* weapons flow across its border even though most of the weapons have flowed through checkpoints still staffed by Russian border guards it manages to say this is unwarranted and shouldn't happen. How *dare* the EU give weapons to the fascist junta in Kiev? Russia just wants a monopoly on who it arms in Ukraine. The longer Ukr can hold out without being dismembered and suffering the fate of Georgia and Moldova, uppity little "lesser peoples" that dared to defy mighty Russia, the worse it is.

"Snooker." It's not just a billiards game.