The only logical conclusion I've seen is that the Wagner contracted mercs have some kind of "capture Bakhmut" bonus. They have been repeatedly attacking it for weeks while their line crumbles elsewhere and failed miserably in every single attack. It is utterly insane.
Hope mods don't mind.
I've bought one of these, helping a little bit.
After lysychansk, the new line of defense for Ukraine was Seversk - Soledar - Bahkmut - Zaitseve/Dacha. The Bakhmutka river runs along this line and is a natural barrier to defend along.
Seversk is too exposed as its a low lying town surrounded by hills on west bank of the river. No advances toward that.
Soledar has had fighting on its eastern side for months
Wagner PMC have been pushing in on Bakhmut for months also, have only reached the suburbs in the last few weeks
South of Bakhmut near Dacha/Zaitseve theyve made biggest gains, have crossed the Bakhmutka river and taken some towns on western bank and are slowly moving north toward Bakhmut that way
Bakhmut is the biggest city in the area, command hub for Ukrainian Army in the area, and has rail & motorway links. It has always been the next target for them
Ukrainian Parliament recognised Kuril islands(Northern Territories) as Japanese territories, occupied by Russian Federation, another headache for Moscow.
Seems like there's a bit of a lull at the moment. Earlier in the week was crazy so I guess that kind of momentum was unsustainable. Hopefully the Ukrainians are solidifying their supply lines in their recently recaptured territories and readying themselves for the next big push.
They will, when they are asked questions on it every time they open their mouths on local radio and public meetings.
These MEPs are supposed to represent us the citizens, not their own private agendas.
I can see where your coming from there. There love in with nasty authoritarian regimes and dictators is perplexing to put it mildly.
It looks like Ukrainian defences around Bakhmut are finally starting to crack a little.
Reports of Starlink outages in Ukraine. That's bad for the Ukrainians as they have been using it to guide their artillery, amongst other things.
It sounds like the Ukrainians were gaining territory so quickly that they got ahead of where it actually works:
Smart move by Zelensky to ask for pre-emptive sanctions on Russia because he says they are *preparing their society* for the possible use of nuclear weapons (with caveats).
As the yanks demonstrated by exposing Ru plans to go ahead with the invasion, it's vitally important to reveal and pull the curtain back on all of Russia's major plans. A e.g. false flag attempt has 10 times less impact when it's pre-empted and exposed beforehand, likewise, it's critical that Ukraine fully reveals to the world (and Russians) that the Kremlin is starting to plot a course for a possible tactical nuclear strike.
Likely a geofencing issue I would think.
From what I've read any nuclear weapons that Putin would deploy in Ukraine are on the smaller end of the scale, not launched from underground silos or submarines but from the back of trucks. Any movement of these weapons would be visible on satellite and that isn't happening yet. But I don't think that would ever happen. Putin's power is on the wane and any order he gave to use nuclear weapons would likely be disobeyed.
Also just to add, I was absolutely gobsmacked to read the comments in the Examiner from Clare Daly condemning the sanctions on Russia. Is she on the Kremlins payroll? Her and Wallace are a national embarrassment.
Seems bakhmut is more stable than is been made out ,
By all accounts all of the claims about bakhmut are coming directly from Russian sources with others repeating the claims
As pointed out, Zelensky is stating the Ru powers are preparing their society, which is exactly what's occurring. Not that the next phase, which would be physical preparation, is occurring.
Likely there would be a significant gap in time between the two.
From a domestic perspective it's quite possible the Ru leadership could "get away" with using a small tactical nuke on the battlefield, the big unknown is the intl. reaction. I suspect the Ru leadership wants to gauge that.
Concerning that Starlink outages have been happening since end of Sept, which Ukrainian forces heavily rely on for comms and targeting. Apparently it's been especially bad over the regions where they have been making advances. Hope there are no shenanigans afoot.
I'm highly skeptical of any news saying that Bakhmut is in trouble myself but that tweet is from 3 days ago so not the best example to counter the rumours.
Elon Musk has responded to that FT story:
probably solar related.
Imagine - Musk could put his time into inventing some kind of fantastic zero-point energy device, but may well end up investing that time into ranting about there only being two genders.
Even oddball geniuses need to unwind on social media or wherever after a long day at work. Sure isn't that why all of us log on here day after day?
This happened earlier today wasn't sure if it was something genuine or not shaykovka airbase 200km inside Russia was supposedly struck by a Ukrainan munition of some kind drone or similar some have said 2 tu22m bombers were destroyed
What air defence doing?
How do you know a Russian is lying.....
You can see his lips move
I’ve a hot new theory, Putin launches a tactical nuke somewhere super sparsely populated, maybe kills a few Ukrainian soldiers at most. He states it’s a warning shot. It’s an outrageous act but not outrageous enough to be countered with more nukes. This draws NATO directly in. Russia leave stating they didn’t want to fight NATO and desire world peace. Putin saves face .
Wallace never did anything local for where ever he was representing. Be it Wexford first and then Leinster. He maintained that from the start his politics were global not local. Just people never realised that meant he was supporting Putin all along.
This must be the ultimate in whataboutery. Not surprised at the deranged ethos of so many contributors to the IT:
A pointless letter. Why the times printed that drivel is beyond me.
lol did not even put their name on it.
Its there.
Scroll down a little.
There is a thread over in the Politics forum lamenting the fact that the IT got rid of the ability to comment underneath the articles on their website. Since this letter is a good example of the sort of incoherent nonsense that was often posted in those comments, I say good riddance!
It'd be terrible if it caught large numbers of retreating soldiers in soft skinned vehicles , trying to cross say a dam ,
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