And after that speech in which he guaranteed to protect the Constitution an rights of Russian citizens, he proceeded to demolish them all, with the so called democratic election that he "won" being the first step.
Its the fields of fire the Russians have which is the main problem. if it was only the mines, they could be taken care of, but its the artillery and machine guns facing the de-miners that's the problems. We have seen what happened last Sept when the Ukrainians chased the Russians out of Kherson etc. No mine fields or entrenched position to protect them.
Time for us to review our aid to some African states. When they start trying to play both sides, time to send a message and since we don't have a military, we cut funding and supports.
So they need more artillary munitions and long range weapons?
Between that and lack of air support, again I think that they offensive is not "stalled" but going as well as realistically possible?
A Ukrainian fencer who beat her Russian opponent and refused to shake hands has been disqualified by the FIE. Bizarre considering this has been happening across all sports for the last year and a half with no disqualifications for Ukrainian athletes
Also the below is her Russian opponent
Likewise with Brazil!
This just adds to the suspicion, Putin described Yevgeny Prigozhin as a traitor just a few weeks back now hes in Russia at an official government event. lots of games being played here. I still think Wagner will have a big role shortly. No doubt when Wagner go on the rampage Putin will say he has no control over them and blame Prigozhin for any atrocities that are committed.
The West benefits far more from the cheap resources it gets from Africa then the cost of aid. The West stands to lose if it cuts ties.
Same for Russia. They spend a fortune on their African operations but are milking them dry.
Fingers crossed
Wrong as far as the West is conceerned: they pay world market prices for commodities from Africa. No doubt African corruption means that the befenits are not widely felt. Maybe it was different in colonial times.
Not the same for Russia: the deadly alliance between Russian and African kleptocrats and also Russian private armies like Wagner is incomparably worse than wnything being done by the Wicked West.
Niger coup leaves France, US exposed in West Africa – POLITICO
I think she was disqualified for raising her foil at the Russian afterwards rather than simply refusing to shake hands (though not certain).
Western companies operate to Western standards even far from civilisation somewhere. Local labour might be cheaper but other costs are higher due to lack of infrastructure and security risks. Individual companies might lose money they've invested if Western governments decide to sanction certain countries but Africa is big and they'll find another place to set up and extract the resource that's in demand.
The country under sanction would be completely screwed though. It makes more sense for them to try have it both ways without overstepping.
The success that Ukraine are talking about approximates to something like the above.
There is a claim they have reached the first main Russian defensive line. This is backed up by geo-located footage of a Ukrainian vehicle stuck in a ditch before a line of dragon's teeth (which corresponds to the continuous white line on the map).
The above really highlights why the Ukrainians have been haemorrhaging Russian artillery and logistics for the last few weeks after that initial assault in the counteroffensive struggled.
Those Russian defences are extremely difficult to progress through, but they are very reliant on having significant artillery capabilities. If they lose the ability to respond to any push with heavy artillery, then Ukraine can flood an area with mine clearing vehicles/personal and following that armoured fighting vehicles to prevent any counter attack.
Sigh
LOL. Like something out of a bad comedy
Who asks these dumb (I cannot see the point anyway) questions and why?
Is it just to create silly "clickbait" stories?
The other stupid one which comes to mind about Eamon Ryan and stopping the cluster shells in a hypothetical scenario where the US was trying to bring them through Ireland for some reason was in the Examiner as well.
I would not be that sure it means anything for the war (directly, in way I think you mean).
Think it could be just a further indicator that Putin is not really all powerful.
He can't just get rid of or sideline Prigozhin and Wagner completely, even if he may prefer to do that now.
He (+ Russia) also still need him. He probably has an important role (through Wagner or personal contacts) to play in Russia's relationships with countries in Africa. Russia has few friends it can rely on internationally at this stage.
Hopefully the rumours of Ukrainian advances are true. I'm not expecting anything huge but the village they reportedly took today is another that needs to fall before they meet the first line.
The other village Roboytne or whatever it's called is right on the first major defense line so breaking that would be progress and maybe give them a focal point to push on.
The leadership of the French chipmaker was arrested for selling technology to Russia
Ommic is one of the few European semiconductor companies. She learned how to make super-powerful, high-performance chips that are used in 5G equipment, satellites, as well as radars on tanks and fighters, and missile guidance systems. Such technologies are carefully protected and their export controlled.
Such activity continued even after the Russian invasion of Ukraine until March 2023
A French company exporting advanced chips to Russia for a year after the war was declared 🙄
Seems to have been confirmed by quite a few sources now. Steps in the right direction.
A Russian cruise ship which docked at Batumi, Georgia today was met by hundreds of anti-Putin protestors and was forced to leave two days ahead of schedule:
its apparently owned by a german cruise company?
Nope.
Could be one to watch.
Is thie
Russian video of a Ukrainian tank approaching Dragons teeth. This is to the east of Robotyne somewhere around here
It looks like they ran a tank deliberately into the antitank ditch to check out the defence there as the driver/observer can be seen standing back at the tree line. The area doesn't appear as heavily defended with no firing on the tank and no mines struck before it ran into the ditch. Very interesting to see what happens here in the next few days.
On a more negative note it seems the KA-52s have managed to extend their range from 8km to 15 km. While they've lost quite a few in the last month they're going to prove more of a problem than they already have been during the counteroffensive.
Just a note on the helis.Since these are modifications since Syria they're probably the aircraft that have been harassing Ukranian armor already no?(and being shot down recently) all along and not something brand new in the last few days.
That's a good point and would explain in part how they've been much more impactful in the last couple of months. Because they're defending with their army not crossing the zero line they were already at an advantage being used as a defensive weapon as opposed to an offensive one. While being the best judge of distance from aerial shots myself, the videos I've seen of KA-52's doing damage could have been at 15 km but I would have guessed most of them looked a bit closer than that.
Does that not seem a rather careless waste of a tank? Surely they could have put a brick on the accelerator of an old lada or something?
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