Russia is lying to its people about the food crisis they're causing themselves. "That could be anyone's millions of tons of stolen food!" they're saying, "Ignore those bloody handprints all over it. We found it. It fell off a truck."
UK Intelligence says Russia may be preparing to call in reservists, because they've lost so many standard soldiers.
That's not the only thing Russia's running out of.Both Russia and Ukraine’s regular armies have seen so many soldiers killed and wounded that “the ability to generate and deploy reserve units to the front is likely becoming increasingly critical to the outcome of the war,” they added.
They also highlighted that Moscow-backed separatists in part of the eastern Donbas region admitted that more than 2,000 of their troops had been killed this year and nearly 9,000 wounded.
In its latest intelligence update, the Ministry of Defence in London said: “Heavy shelling continues as Russia pushes to envelop the Severodonetsk area via Izium in the north and Popasna in the south.
“Russia is highly likely preparing to attempt to deploy a large number of reserve units to the Donbas.”
Their planes are falling apart.
Half the Russian separatist fighters are wounded or dead.
Drone strikes Russian refinery.
And Experts say there are mounting signs that the Kremlin is purging its top generals in Ukraine, the latest hint of deep dysfunction in Putin's army
The Kremlin recently replaced the commander of the Russian Airborne forces and could be in the process of a major shakeup of their current command structure in Ukraine, according to a new report from the Institute for the Study of War.
The analysis found that many top officials could be blamed for the failure to fully capture Ukraine, prompting the Kremlin to replace those officers with new faces.
Current Chief of Staff of the Central Military District, Colonel-General Mikhail Teplinsky, will replace the current Commander of the Russian Airborne Forces, Colonel-General Andrey Serdyukov, according to the report.
Ukrainian sources reported that Serdyukov was previously fired from his post by the Kremlin for "poor performance" and "high casualties," according to ISW's report.
"Such drastic rotations within the Russian military, if true, are not actions taken by a force on the verge of a major success and indicate ongoing dysfunction in the Kremlin's conduct of the war," the report states.
Imagine being a Russian Colonel-General going to work one day only to be told you're going to be put in charge of the shit show that is the Ukrainian invasion, with the expectations of producing a victory where the others before you could not.
I can't imagine even one of them does not worry about that every night before going to bed.
Last edited by Shrouded; 2022-06-22 at 08:36 PM.
Last edited by Makabreska; 2022-06-22 at 09:14 PM.
Sometimes, the light of the moon is a key to other spaces. I've found a place where, for a night or two, the streets curve in unfamiliar ways. If I walk here, I might find insight, or I might be touched by madness.
Worried, terrified, what's the difference. This will eventually breed a lot of resentment though, as the leadership gets purged and scapegoated. Same with the security services.
At some point that tension will give, and I'm not sure how that will work out, but the last time Russian Imperial leadership made mistakes on this scale there was a little scuffle in October.
I was reading a book recently about the French Revolution, and this is exactly what it was like. They launched a series of wars to "liberate" other countries from their "oppressive governments," and when a general failed to immediately bring victory, they decided that the only possible explanation was that he was insufficiently devoted to the cause, brought him home, chopped his head off, gave the job to someone else, and presumably pointed at the last guy while ironically saying "no pressure."
Last edited by DarkTZeratul; 2022-06-23 at 04:21 PM.
Seems like no one has been able to positively identify the kamikaze drone that hit the Russian oil refinery. Best guess seems to be an 8K Chinese drone bought through alibaba, which is kind of ironic. 8k for doing a lot of damage to an oil refinery seems a fair trade.
The other question is how they got it there. There closest Ukrainian controlled territory is 300 km away, so it would have had to fly through a lot of Russia air defence in the first place, not to mention how it was controlled. Unless it had satellite links, which the chinese model doesn't come with, then it would require someone nearby to be controlling it.
Ahhh, peace and quiet, finally.
Before and after satellite vision of the large warehouse housing Russian munitions Ukraine took out the other day with a Tochka-U strike. Its simply gone. And the surrounding neighborhood has taken some major damage as well. That was one big explosion with a lot of munitions now gone.
Read this from a soldier from my country, who at first fought north of Kyiv with ex US and French soldiers, now fighting in Donbass.
Just a small part of it, pointing out how Russia advance is stopped.
Translated with google translate
Holding back
Around the clock, artillery shells strike in and around the village. In 24 hours, they count 500 drops a day, Mike says over the phone from Ukraine. The soldiers seek shelter in fruit cellars, shooting holes and shattered buildings. Mike talks about one of the countless times they grab their weapons and go back into position:
It's 1 o'clock at night. The artillery shelling has stopped shortly before, and an outpost may have spotted movement at one of the approach roads to Berostov.
Mike and his people scout with their thermal binoculars as far as they can down the gravel road. The areas around the road are densely mined. Suddenly, the sound of several powerful engines can be heard across the night-quiet landscape. Seconds later, several four-wheel drive vehicles leap onto the horizon.
Shoulder-borne rockets
Mike holds his people back. The enemy must pass a wild fence of trees so they can not escape and hide. The wait feels endless. The sign is given and there is a bang and a hiss from several antitank weapons being fired. The shoulder-bearing rockets hit their target perfectly. The front, center and rear vehicles of the high-speed column are hit.
- They can neither come forward nor back, and it creates the perfect panic among them. At the same time, they are pulled free of the tree line, so they can not retreat into hiding either. The rest of the work makes our light machine guns, he says.
Sweaty and burnt out, the four-wheel drive is left on the road next to many other scars and remnants of the war. During the period, the Russians try to occupy the city in eastern Ukraine several times a day. With the powerful cars, they will quickly enter the city and spread out and make a bridgehead until their heavier and slower tanks and armored personnel carriers can come forward and help conquer the rest of the area.
He makes sure Ukrainians can rest in peace.
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Natural selection at its finest.
Incidentally, the Royal Navy also executed an admiral after it was established he was not aggressive enough in attacking the French. The time that followed was arguably the most glorious for the Navy, producing legends like Nelson. It also helped that whenever enemies spotted British ships they could know with certainty those would go for the throat.
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Military-grade air defense and radar systems were not conceived with drones in mind. Due to their size and lower speed, they can literally fly below the radar.
The former is more likely than the later. This seems to be the drone people think it was. I'd say it is still likely the Ukrainians did it somehow, as locals wouldn't need a drone so big to do any damage. But fog of war an all that.
Russia May Win The War In Ukraine
https://www.19fortyfive.com/2022/06/...ar-in-ukraine/
It is time to strip off the rose-colored glasses much of the West has worn when looking at Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine and acknowledge the cold, hard truth: the Russians are on course to win. The longer we traffic in the fiction that Ukraine still has a chance, the more Ukrainian civilians will be killed, the more cities will be destroyed, and the higher the probability that Russia seizes yet more territory before a negotiated settlement can end the fighting – potentially including Kyiv. You’d never know that, however, listening to high-ranking current and former officials in the West.
Ukraine to stand a chance, needs more western weapons, heavy weapons (long range artilery and aircrafts to be more precise). Without such weapons, and in big quantities, Ukraine will lose this war and it will lose it in a few months (if not earlier) from now.
It all boils down to if we, as EU / US, want to risk a direct war with Russia. I say that because Russia had made it clear, that it will do whatever it needs to be done, to win this war. I personaly believe that such war would be catastrophic for all parties involved and the only winner would be China.
And please dont start but "Russia is bad brah". According to international law an invasion is "legal" if it is authorized by UNSC or if your country gets attacked. Russia's invasion is fully illegal and not justifiable, but so it was the bombing of Yugoslavia by NATO, Iraq's invasion by US/UK etc. The "demonization" of Russia by the west, is weird especially since the West is leading in count of such wars.