@Francie Barrett The position of Ukraine in the east looks increasingly untenable. Russia are making advances all accross the line and it's clear that Ukraine are struggling to plug the gaps..
It's not as bad as its been made to be ,
There is already discussions of a large Ukrainian counter offensive to take place in the next 8-10 days ,in alot of the cases the Ukrainans pull back from a village where there is nothing to hold and when the Russians push forward the Ukrainans hammer them
The Russians are not advancing all across the line.The are stuck behind a river to the north and stuck behind Seivierdonetsk north east.
They are advancing from the south into Ukraine defence positions.militaryland.net/ukraine/deployment-map
They've also figured out that its probably better to just lend aid to the enemies of their opposition rather than confront directly with American troops as long as they're not religious or ideological crackpots like the Taliban.
America gets to accomplish its aims geopolitical aims without losing an american life, gets to keep its arms industry happy by selling product and keeping Americans in jobs and making homeland security that bit easier as they're a step removed from all conflicts. Just the threat they will get involved would be enough to put off most conflicts except for head the balls and Russia.
Interesting that a referendum being upheld is anti democracy
Just imagine if Brexit had been defeated first time and then the British government decided they wanted to run the referendum again...🤔
Compare Britains response to the Ukrainian crisis and how the EUs response is kept in line with the German and French response. France, Italy, Austia, Germany, Hungary would rather stay on Putins good side even if that means slowly letting him creep across Europe. Very similar to the Cold War appeasement most of those countries took towards the Soviets. Thankfully the Yanks, featuring the Brits, took the opinion that Russia needed to be beaten not appeased. I'd rather be divided from continetal Europes power games, thanks very much.
Ukrainian army repelled Russian forces offensive attempt near Dovhenke at Sloviansk direction, - General Staff of Armed Forces of Ukraine says in the morning report
Yes Brexit is the absolute beacon example of how a government should run an impartial facts based referendum.
😂
Very interesting read - Russian diplomat Boris Bondarev resigns over Ukraine war, saying he has 'never been so ashamed of my country' | World News | Sky News
Also Vladimir Putin's diplomat QUITS in protest over Ukraine war as Russia backlash grows - World News - Mirror Online
He continued: "In 18 years, he [Lavrov] went from a professional and educated intellectual, whom many of my colleagues held in such high esteem, to a person who constantly broadcasts conflicting statements and threatens the world with nuclear weapons!"
He called out the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for warmongering, lies and hatred and not diplomacy.
It makes me wonder how much intelligence China had on the status of the Russian military ahead of this war.
Russia most likely wouldn't gave gone ahead without Chinese say-so or, at a minimum, an understanding that they wouldnt object. Did they just blindly accept what he told them? It looks that way.
Had they done their military intelligence homework surely they'd have seen that Russia wasn't equipped to fulfill its objectives?
Its a very foolhardy approach to take.
Or possibly the Russians said it was special military operation in the disputed eastern sectors, similar to Crimean operation and said nothing about the full scale invasion.
Sky have probably the best unbiased report on the situation in Ukraine
Whatever about the wisdom of such a misadventure, the conventional thinking in corridors of power globally was that the Russian army would be way too strong for Ukraine. There wasn't too much disagreement with that 3 day invasion concept either.
Your military guy on Sky News said the UA may let them become encircled with a view to rescuing them later. If Russia is as depleted as some say, this might be possible.
Whilst I wholly agree, that war analyst went a bit looney for me. He went off track at 11am one morning at started talking about China and Russia being able to create their own weather systems.
He blamed that for the lack of Nuclear bomber being paraded on Victory day. That the Russians has lost control of the ability to create weather.
Was the strangest sentence I've ever seen on Sky news!
Well that's put them on the list
Couldnt be worse than others i have seen
Very different situation from Mariupol as the Ukrainian military will be within range to hammer the attacking Russians whilst the troops inside the city just ensure they don't let them progress quickly. This could be the meatgrinder to top all meat grinders as everything within 3 to 5kms of the cities edge will be shelled out of existence. I wouldn't fancy my chances of staying alive trying to capture a city in conditions like that.
Some years ago the Russians did use a chemical (a silver compound) to disperse the clouds for the May 9th. parade.
There are old Soviet era bunkers in a lot of Ukrainian cities...
That's another big development considering Tokayev invited Russia troops there in January to maintain power.
lyman heavy shelling
Kazakstan did no such thing
Ukrainians bombing themselves again!
Any time the Kazakhs have done anything on Russia this year, the Russians (including the Putin bot public) have been absolutely seething and viewed it as a stab in the back. They're supposed to be a loyal satellite state.
That's very, very significant potentially. Kazakhstan is basically a Russian client state. It would be remarkable for them to do something overt like this.
Occupation authorities introduced Russian ruble in Kherson region from today
Interesting snippet from Russian newspaper Kommersant that other senior officials in the Foreign Ministry have also resigned but have not gone public about their resignations in the way Bondarev has. It seems many within the department are disgusted at the way Lavrov and Zakharova are conducting themselves - openly lying and acting as cheerleaders for the slaughter in Ukraine.
The story will all come out but we have no idea yet, maybe we never will, about how many saboteurs were in the Ukrainian ranks. I think they've confirmed at least one plot foiled against Zelensky. I'd imagine if it were the Yanks (though they do more or less seem to have gone from the assassinating leaders tactic) they'd have 3 or 4 independent plans without each actor knowing of other plans in case any didn't work. But it's Russia so they probably had one guy with a phone fresh out of the box asking silly questions in an oddly loud and stilted manner.
Thankfully Zelensky wasn't as naive as he seemed at the start, massive preparations were made and don't forget there was a battle for Kyiv, even if the Russians didn't plan for any resistance. I'm sure different levels of the Chinese government had foreknowledge but I doubt they saw much to give them a reason to doubt Russia. Former "province", already hold some land, country is almost half in favour of Russia (because speaking Russian means that apparently), military run down for a couple of decades... sounds simple enough.
Didn't the Kazakhs vote against Russia as well? Could be wrong, thought I remembered that sticking out as a bit odd.
They did and the Russians were raging with them - they view them as very much being in the Russian sphere of influence and someone who should be 'loyal' to them.
Very much so which is why I've been looking to find out more. It seems interest pieces and "from our correspondent" type pieces have gotten fewer recently.
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