At Bakhmut direction Russian army shelled Ukrainian positions near Mykolaivka, Bilohorivka, Yakovlivka and Pokrovske, conducted missile strikes near Zaitseve and New York. Russian army conducting assault actions at Orikhove-Hirske direction, - General Staff of Armed Forces of Ukraine says in the morning report
I gave Wallace a bollocking yesterday. Two of the most naive humans ever elected.
The Ukrainians have far less capacity at the moment unless western help steps up a gear. Ukraine has also stagnated to a very large degree too. Both sides push a bit here, a bit there, but overall it's a fairly stagnated front only for the losses of men on both sides. OK the Russians won't be able to replace Sukhois too readily, but "dumb" shells, rockets and mortars are a lot easier to ramp up production in.
I don't think its an unreasonable argument that 4 months is not really "long term". The Russian offensive has stagnated and their losses continue - long term they are screwed. Whether that means in a month or two or 6 months or a year from now is more the question. Its also not just a case of money, they do not have the production capacity to make up for their losses.
"[insert talking head here] says quote 'Russia can not maintain this long term'". We've been hearing the same since barely a week into this horrorshow. One day the talking heads will be right, but I fear it's not anytime soon. Yes Russia is spending billions on weapons, but the west(mostly) is paying them many more billions for oil and gas. Personnel are a bigger issue of course, but if - as it seems they're doing now - they concentrate on hammering the Ukrainian positions and cities with long range artillery while keeping the men mostly back behind their lines, it's less of an issue that it was at first. Unless Ukraine gets longer range better artillery etc and soon, this war of attrition will work against them.
Former CIA chef says quote 'Russia can not maintain this long term... Russia is losing more hardware and personnel in one day than the US lost in 20 years!' If the Ukraine gets a number of Predator drones it will let them target the Russian front lines to significant effect.
Russian thinking(and their bots) has a major hate hard on for Poland going back a long way into history* and part of this is the belief/conspiracy that Poland is poised to invade Ukraine and take over large tracts of its eastern regions. That this is part of The Plan(tm) for Ukraine. That the Americans were going to turn Ukraine into a Yankee puppet and NATO base a stones/missiles throw from the Kremlin, Ukrainian nazis were going to ethnically cleanse the Donbas of Russian sympathisers and were massing for this attack just before Russia's Special Military Operation and Poland would come in and take parts of the west of the country that were once hers historically.
*them and the Monguls were the only ones who succesfully invaded and took the place and Poland is a lot closer and from there its a straight uninterrupted path to Moscow, so has long figured in their fears.
I'm off to visit C. Daly's twitter page and set her straight about a few things...
What I'm thinking is that the Polish "attack" is just an excuse to invade Ukraine.
Putin wouldn't agree anyway to Ukraine being allowed into NATO membership, even if Ukraine hands over complete sovereignty of Crimea, Donbass & the south coast region to Russia. Any Ukrainian leader, including Zelenskyy would agreed with such a deal would be democratically rejected by the Ukrainian people, anyone even supporting such a deal would be in grave danger of losing their lives.
Those in the west who demand that Ukraine totally compromise & meet Russian imperialist demands are enemies of freedom & democracy, as are those that demand that western military aid to Ukraine should be curtailed.
Ukraine fights on because the other stark choice is occupation, tyranny & the extinction of a culture & it's people for many decades. They will fight on without further western military equipment if they have to.
Manchu Mick. I like it.
Manchurian (candidate) Mick
Moscow Mick was full-on Lord Haw Hawing on behalf of China in the European parliament this week.
Mandarin Mick? The Great Wallace of China? Mick Zedong? Clare People's Daily? So much to play with.
They will not care, evil communist shi7s.
Clare and Mick?
Because they are better people than those who advocate it. To answer your next “question”: better in every way that matters. To answer your next contribution: the ways that matter are the ways that matter. I’m sure you’ve figured it out now.
Why don't they just surrender?
I’m dedicating this post to Daly and Wallace, the de escalate and surrender crowd, the “realists” in international relations, the supporters of colonialism. Here you go:
I think they're fairly fed up of Putin holding them for ransom and cutting off their oil and gas flows to Europe at will.
With new US, Iran relations it looks like a pipeline through Iran may be on the cards again. Bypassing Russia to Western markets.
Kazakhstan president Tokayev going against putin again in an interview today.
Kadyrov the goat from Chechnya was defending putin after Tokayev's insult to putin at the forum at the weekend.Kadyrov said "Who saved Belarus? Russia. Who saved Kazakhstan? Russia. Who stopped the war between Armenia and Azerbaijan? Russia. And when Russia needs it, everyone is silent – you are afraid of sanctions"
Tokayev said "it was not Russia that saved Kazakhstan, but the CSTO", so you should not try on the role of a "savior", because no one is going to "serve and bow at the feet" for this".
This relationship is going downhill.Russia want Kazakhstan to help with sanctions but they have said they wont help.Kazakhstan has a weak army so can not stand up to Russia in a fight but everything is changing.The Kazakhstan public are against the war and the president is with them.......for now.
On the battlefield a command centre near Kharkiv was destroyed
Ominous like a white blanket thrown over a three year old shouting… Boo!
luke is saying he has warded off a Polish attack. Poles haven’t attacked, ergo he is a hero.
Typical weak dictator ploy.
There is zero chance he attacks Poland.
If China goes after Taiwan I'd be 99% sure there'd be US planes in the air, ships and sea and boots on the ground. Taiwan is increasingly important to Western strategic interests.
It gives China permission also, start a bad precedent
Exactly. The only way ceding territory would work is if Ukraine gets NATO membership or cast iron protection guarantees for military aid fro, NATO powers.
Otherwise it won't be peace, just a truce to allow Russia to re-arm and come back again.
Exactly, and that's why it'll be a long war. Not because of something Assange said about Afghanistan a few years ago.
If by Zelenskyy stopping this you mean surrender, forget it. If they surrender they will be taken to the death camps. There's no way the Russians can be allowed to have Ukraine. And ceding territory is just a hiatus. They'll come back emboldened and want more.
Or maybe it'll be a long war because the Russians are fine with sacrificing their young men while the Ukrainians don't want to be wiped off the map? Maybe?
I mean seriously ffs have some critical thinking, Zelensky can "stop this" any time he wants. Europe pretty much washed their hands of the whole thing til the Ukrainians showed that they weren't prepared to be a paragraph in a history book in a generation's time. Europe basically told him to surrender. The yanks offered him safe passage out. For all the talk of outside interference there was feck all at the start aside from the Yanks warning the invasion was imminent and being called warmongers for telling the clear and obvious truth.
Are the arms manufacturers doing well out of this? You betcha. Was it expected? Did anyone at the start of February think that by this point we'd be hearing anything other than horror stories coming out of Ukraine and a puppet government set up in Kyiv with widespread partisan activities trying to stymie any pretence of Russia having total control.
This might explain why they are talking about a long war???-
Anyone saying Ukraine should surrender can really go and **** themselves. This isn't a regime change, it's ethnic fuckin cleansing like it or not. Quibble about whether it's genocide if you like but their goal is to wipe out Ukrainian culture anywhere they can. Replace the currency, put in a new "government", detain people for speaking Ukrainian, deport 10s (likely hundreds but I'll await confirmation) of thousands of people to **** Siberia. And criticising Ukraine for not sticking to agreements kinda feels a bit hollow ever since Russia poured over the border.
What would Britain do if Ireland banned the use of the English language? They'd laugh their bollocks off and a couple of their old-school civil servants would be straight on to the EU for some rules loosening and trading and Britain (London) would hoover up another bunch of high-paying jobs. FFS.
Did we ever hear any more from General Putinovich and his band of merry Zeds.?