Now if Putler would only call it a draw. As in, gtfo and start paying a centuries worth of reparations. Plus war crimes prosecutions.
Sounds like Russia wants peace talks.
It would be nice if those A-10s could turn up about now; those columns of retreating orcs - brrrrttttttt.
I agree with that sentiment.
They got caught out badly by the moves and by all accounts the Ukrainian army in that sector are loaded up on western weaponry. No flexibility in Russian forces at all either in tactics or command against what now seems to be a pretty modern military force.
HIMARS.
Remember all those mysterious fires?
Ammo depots.
From what I've seen, their artillery is generally outranged by the western systems that have entered service in recent months. From what I've seen, even the M777 towed howitzer can outrange most Russian artillery when using the right charges. That's without taking into consideration the M109s and their derivatives or the PzH-2000, which can "shoot and scoot" before the Russians can direct counter battery fire onto their positions, even if they are in range.
Speaking of artillery, I've just seen that Germany has delivered the promised COBRA counter-battery radar system. Life is about to get even worse for the Russians.
Probably sitting in Kerson waiting for 1 shell at a time to be swum across the dnieper river strapped to the back of a conscript.
Yes, but I had thought the Russians had been keeping Ukrainian forces at bay or pushing them back by raining indiscriminate artillery fire from distance, so what has changed that Ukrainian forces have been able to penetrate Russia's iron rain?
Russians seem to think Ukraine are preparing to attack the south near Ugledar.
https://t.me/rybar/38606
I was going to ask what shot it down yesterday. Only thing about that I would find surprising is that Russian anti-aircraft are capable of hitting anything, even if it is their own.
Hard to shell positions coming straight at you!
What happened with Russia's tactic of shelling in a everything in front of them? Did they run out of shells or are specific new weapons given to the Ukrainian military making the difference?
From what I've seen of John Sweeneys Twitter account, he's not one to throw that kind of stuff out lightly. Still, I'd take this with an appropriately sized grain of salt.
Could the legions return home and tell Putin to sling his hook.
John Sweeney reporting rumours of a mutiny in the Russian army.
All part of tbe plan I suppose LOL
these tactical retreats we are seeing point to Russia battening down the hatches to hold a more realistic position in the North East, expect more of the same in the south west, rivers will be the new front lines
Most of what Putin had been doing prior to this year was cloak and dagger stuff that he could kind of distance himself from a little bit. The glaring exception would be Crimea, but I think the reason he got away with that was that the takeover was almost bloodless and he could proclaim (not without some basis, to be fair) that the takeover was welcomed by the locals. The West could say it didn't like the land grab, but it just didn't generate enough of an outrage to interfere. Besides which, the Ukrainian military was in no position to respond and the US military was not going to directly confront Russia over it. Even the Georgia campaign, although bloodier, was over quite quickly, and had come as an apparent surprise.
The West had learned some lessons from these moves Putin made and began to watch Russia a lot more closely. It didn't help Russia that a full-scale invasion of Ukraine (as it looked like Russia originally tried to do) would take the kind of buildup and planning that simply could not go unnoticed. It also could not go unpunished because it was happening right next to a swathe of NATO countries. And to really pile the insanity on, Russia has intimated on more than one occasion that they did not intend to stop at Ukraine. The mask had really slipped from Putin's botox smooth face. He should have stuck to the cheeky jabs instead of going for the clumsy haymaker and leaving himself wide open for the counter punch.
The news blackout was foreshadowed on the Ukraine military Telegram channel a couple of days ago.
Here is the largest size version of the image I can find: https://i.imgur.com/Cyfmn7i.jpeg
It's 3312 x 4800 so any local specialist photo printer should be able to print it to 40cm in height at 300dpi.
Assuming Ukraine could push back Russian forces enough to the point where a push into Crimea was even viable, I still don't know if they'd do it as it's a whole other punishing campaign. The threat of being able to invade Crimea would be a great bargaining chip in negotiations with Russia, though, to be able to say, "We could take it, but we will let you have it for this long list of concessions in return. We want reparations, we want these people tried as war criminals, we want all deported citizens returned, we want a cap on Russian energy prices, we want this area demilitarised, we want a non-aggression agreement with these countries as guarantors. etc etc."
I suppose my point was Putin has had years of pushing the envelope without any significant pushback from Europe or the US. Killing citizens abroad, Russian troll farms, Cyber terrorism, Annexing Crimea, Syria, he has done so much and gotten away with it.
He's also been the poster boy for authoritarian leaders, Orban etc. giving the impression that an alternative Russian centred world order was possible. Surely that's blown out of the water now.
Apparently the Russian SU-34 that was shot down last night in Crimea, was shot down by the Russians. They couldn't mess this up more even if they tried!!
No.
He was opening up a Ferris Wheel in Moscow today.
Losing Kharkiv oblast is not really enough for panic stations. The only chance that Putin would ever be threatened is through Ukraine kick Russian out of all occupied territories including Crimea.
It's another reason why Western countries should be aiding Ukraine as much as possible. Because the end of Putin is a distinct possibility if Ukraine is able to regain Crimea.
Yes, he opened a big Ferris wheel in Moscow yesterday, so was still very much in charge at that point anyway.
The Russian public are well aware though that things are going very badly - everyone knows that the army retreated in disgrace in Kharkiv and that this was no tactical withdrawal (even the regime propaganda can't disguise any of it).
It's only a matter of time until Russia withdraw from the part of the Kherson region that's north of the Dnipro. In fact, I think it could happen very soon.
It's a different kind of negotiation than one to end the war, just to evict them out of their current positions. I would assume, leave or f'kn die in place. Full national mobilisation would take russia 6 months so really, as long as Western support continues - and that has been hugely helped by the last few days - the decision of when and where to draw a halt resides in Kyiv not the kremlin.
This collapse… any possibility Putin is already gone and someone else is in charge? Just pure speculation on my part, but would make sense… any sightings of mad Vlad of late?
I read it as Kharkiv, oops.
Not sure the Ukranians are going to up for negotiation, one of the articles I read held that their view was that negotiating any settlement with the Russians will just result in the Russians coming back stronger again in few years for another go, better for them to go all out now and try push Russia back altogether. It's basically a zero sum game now and compromising will not work.
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