Some info from the Ukraine

[AnthonyS]

Originally Posted by Trip McNeely

Question…. Why did Zelensky video a statement and announce a Grammy winner for the show on Sunday night? Does this not strike anyone as extremely odd as they are in the middle of a “war?” WTF

I already told you we are in the midst of the WW3 information war. It's mostly about information and control. Wars are and will be different from now on. Unrestricted trench warfare is gone for now. It's going to be information, political and guerilla warfare from now on. And anyone that thinks guerilla warfare doesn't work should revisit Afganistan.

Zelensky is a TV personality and not a field general. He is doing what he knows how to do and at the behest of his advisors..... the real thing you need to do is figure out who his advisors are and what information they are peddling and what they are hiding.

What you should really question, is why are you watching such BS on TV in the first place?

[Trip McNeely]

Originally Posted by AnthonyS

What you should really question, is why are you watching such BS on TV in the first place?

I watched it live and DVR'd it so I could watch it again!

This information is only on every news outlet around... .. .

[AnthonyS]

Originally Posted by Trip McNeely

I watched it live and DVR'd it so I could watch it again!

This information is only on every news outlet around... .. .

Ask yourself why every news outlet on the planet cares about this shit more than a screwed up economy, open border, pedophilia, and re-evaluate your TV consumption. Or not.....

[68RR]

April 7 - Day 43 - Donbass: The decisive RF offensive that is no longer a surprise
Hi FB,
Two videos for you today.
The one with the RF vehicles in the plain I think is a good illustration of how the Russiand Federation (RF) forces move and what the Ukraine Armed Forces (UAF) can and cannot do about it. You see a bunch of trucks, which are far too close together for any intelligent army in a war against a competent opponent, and then you see very accurate UAF shells hitting among the trucks. What you don’t see - and I concede it may have happened, it just didn’t get videoed - is a crushing artillery strike of 20-40 shells in a several seconds. To do that, one needs practice coordinating among several cannon batteries, and of course, plenty of shells to burn. At least in the video, clearly, the UAF is only firing a few cannons at time, and certainly not wasting ammunition.
The message being: If the West wants to give the Ukrainians the capacity to crush RF attacks as opposed to turn them back for a while, a basic prerequisite is trainloads of artillery ammunition.
The second video is giggling UAF soldiers blowing up an RF tank. It is important to remember that the real fighting is done by young men, and like it or not they have their own sense of humor.
Donbass:
Please take a look at the two Donbass battle maps I pilfered from today’s social media. Together I think they give a reasonably probable picture of where forces are now.
According to all accounts both sides are preparing for a show-down battle in this sector. The most extreme prediction came from Foreign Ministry Anatoly Kuleba, who predicted a WW2-scale fight with hundreds of tanks and tens of thousands of soldiers on each side. He said the crisis was coming in “days not weeks” and that if western states want to help Ukraine they need to get hardware to the Donbass now, or it will be too late “and thousands will die”.
Other sources, for instance Ukraine’s Army Chief of Staff and British Defense Intelligence, are more conservative in their predictions, and say that right now the RF is rearming and re-equipping its troops prior to the Donbass offensive, and that it’s taking time to bring units battered around Kyiv and Kharkiv back into fighting order.
According to a statement from 128th Mountain Assault Brigade (Zakarpatia) , near the Luhansk village Kremenna, near Severodonetsk, the UAF put in a successful infantry attack and threw RF forces north five to ten km. If that’s true, then that’s one place both maps referenced above are inaccurate. No way to know for absolute sure, without going there.
Official UAF sources reported unsuccessful RF pushes towards Novotoshkovska, Rubizhne and Nizhne and Novo Bakhmutovka; and substantial shellings (again) of Severodonetsk, Lysychansk and Popasna. Particularly heavy fires “with all weapons” were reported at Hirsky.
On Wednesday evening a video surfaced purportedly showing a substantial column of Russian equipment near Kupyansk, which is a key road interesction town; if you drive west from there you attack Kharkiv, and if you go south you can aim at either Severodonetsk or Kramatorsk. The size of the column wasn’t clear, but, at least possibly this column is one of the first RF reinforcement formations getting ready to be thrown at Donbass. However, there were no reports of a major column moving either in the Kharkiv or Severodonetsk sectors during the day today. Almost certainly US satellite overfights, and so the UAF, know exactly where this column is. We don’t, but do know it’s out there.
As always, the blackout on UAF preparations for the Donbass offensive was effectively total. Me, I would not want to attack the UAF after giving them a week or two to get ready, but I’m biased.
Mariupol: There was not a peep or a reference, by Ukraining media or UAF officials sources to the Marine “surrender” reported yesterday by RF propaganda outlets. Which is a little peculiar. Not sure what it means though.
Kherson, Mykolaiv and Krivoi Rih
The single map of this sector, also pilfered from social media, I think gives a very clear picture of where units are, assuming that the information is accurate. There are some confirmations of unit locations on this map, from other sources. The overall picture seems to be UAF forces and RF forces shooting artillery at each other, but making no pushes or obvious retreats.
A video surfaced late Wednesday evening purportedly showing RF armored vehicles, including tanks, moving in the vicinity of Nova Kakhovka. It was not clear in what direction.
According to the Zaporizhia regional defense command, overnight Wednesday-Thursday RF artillery shelled the settlements of Shcherbaki, Novodanylivka, Mala Tokmachka, Lukyanivske, Preobrazhenka, Huliaipole. As a result of another shelling in the village of Komyshuvakha, one person was injured. About 20 houses were damaged, one was destroyed. RF fires of an unreported type also hit houses in Stepnogorsk and in Verkhnya Krynytsia.
Kyiv and rear area Ukraine:
Here is another indication of the threat level in this sector: Today, road crews begain repairs to the Zhitomyr highway, which had been a battle zone for nearly a month. Inside Kyiv checkpoints are operating and tank barriers are still in place. However, grocery stores have a somewhat larger range of foods, and some small stores are now re-opening. Most of the city’s businesses still seem to be closed. But - and some of you will be glad to hear this - Martin the War Cat’s favorite pet food store in our neighborhood reopened yesterday.
A statement from the Kyiv defense command said that the capital is far from peacetime safe. According to that report, in the last 48 hours Kyiv police and other law enforcers have identified sixteen separate guerrilla groups left behind by retreating RF forces, hopefully to cause fear and mayhem in the city. So far, Kyiv seems quiet, but martial law is fully in effect from 2100 to 0600.
International:
- The British announced today they were sending Ukraine Mastiff armored vehicles, which will be of some use, although like most Afghanistan-era vehicles they are pretty large and blocky for use in conventional war where speed and smaller size are good vehicle feature, because of all the ways the other side has to destroy a vehicle if he can spot it. It will be interesting to see how the Ukrainians make use of them, but in any case, it is highly doubtful a battle bus designed to take on the Taliban was also designed to handle the firepower a typical RF battle group can bring down on a target. So nice gesture, the Ukrainians will probably figure out a way to use them, but Mastiffs don’t count as the heavy weapons Ukraine keeps begging for.
- Today, after weeks of announcements and press releases and declarations it’s really going to happen, the Pentagon said Ukraine received its first batch of Switchblade kamikaze drones. Reports of actual numbers seem to range between 50 and 100, and I haven’t found a definitive answer as to whether the drones are the little anti-personnel kind, or the big anti-vehicle kind. On paper an anti-vehicle kamikaze drone is a tool the Ukrainians can use and that the RF will have difficulty countering. However, one of the drone’s supposed advantages - a long loiter time running into hours - is probably not very useful in this war. Drones appear to be getting shot down fast and frequently in this war; at least, that’s what a drone operator told me today. Maybe if the Americans sent 500 or 1000 of the things, then you might get so much overmatch that RF air defense would be overwhelmed and the UAF would have the capacity to wipe out an entire RF BRG without have a single UAF soldier stick his head out of a foxhole. But this is 50 to 100 attack drones. I think it’s pretty likely the UAF will use the Switchblades like a mobile anti-armor reserve, similar to the way they used Bayraktar strik drones in the second week of the war, in Zhitomyr sector.
Russian army
- According to UAF media quoting an RF news channel called “Pskovskaya Gubernia”, an RF airborne unit based in the city Pskov, now in Belarus after a month fighting around Kyiv, is effectively dissolving itself because a great majority of the service personnel have handed in their resignations. Command is trying to entice officers and men to not to do that with a combination of patriotic appeals and threats of prison. Not confirmed, but certainly far from the first report we’ve had about motivation issues in the RF military.
Similar refusals were reported in Kamchatka and Buryatia but, RF propaganda television today showed armed Buryats standing in a row at attention, while the voiceover said this was part of the new wave of RF patriots ready to go fight Nazis in Ukraine.

[68RR]

Ukrainian military bloggers are now suggesting the Kremlin is intentionally raising new troops well away from western Russia, and particularly away from the big cities, because of fears of triggering anti-war protests. That may be, but, over the last month we have documented the dispatch of basically ethnic formations of Chechens, Abkhaz, Ossetians, Buryats, Tuvans into Ukraine; as well as combat units with little business in a land war in East Europe like Marine infantry, Arctic infantry and peacekeeper units yanked fro m the Caucasus, and generally speaking the UAF has cut them all to bits. At the same time, professional combat units with heavy numbers of ethnic Russians seem to have caused the UAF the most trouble.
Sooner or later the RF is going to have to choose. Option one in their mind seems to be throwaway cannon fodder whose soldiers the Kremlin pays little political price for, if they are killed, but who probably have few chances in an open fight with the UAF. The second option seems to be capable combat units containing a high proportion of soldiers educated in relatively Europeanized towns and cities, who can often fight very effectively, but if THOSE soldiers are killed and wounded in great numbers the RF public just might turn out in the streets and demand an end to the killing.
The choice gets trickier when your plan is capture Donbass whole in a major offensive hopefully ending in time to celebrate Allied defeat of Nazi Germany on May 9.

[68RR]

Current Ukrainian estimate of total Russian losses:
Killed: 20,800
Wounded: 62,400
Taken Prisoner: 1000
Armored Combat Vehicles: 2063
Tanks: 802
Artillery Weaponry: 386
Aircraft: 169
Helicopters: 150
Ships and Boats: 8

[Rick Modena]

I don't watch the news so thank you for the updates.

[Gasser64]

Fog of war. We'll never know most of it. We'll just get some bullet points 8 years from now, and a good portion of them will be missing.

I am curious about the mentality of the mercenaries and other paid help of the azov battalion. It's their job to know what they're up against. So why would they sign up to fight the russian army at that big ironworks? Wouldn't they know it's a lost cause, and that they're most likely going to die? It's difficult to spend your pay when you are dead.

[68RR]

U.S. Media is reporting that the Russians have taken a town nw of Sievierodonetsk called Kreminna. The town has a population of just under 20k. The mayor is reporting lots of civilian casualties.
The town is north of the Donets River, so for the Russians to exploit this, they'll have to cross it.
The town had a pro-Russian mayor named Volodymyr Struk who welcomed the Russian invasion. He was dragged out of his house and executed by unknown "Ukrainian patriots" in March. The town has been in the front lines for weeks, and last month Russian main battle tank gunfire struck an elderly care facility that killed 56 patients.

[68RR]

Brief Update:
Crazy day here, will try to get a full update in tonight.
For now, take a look at this:
This is the hub of Russian missile research & development, the place that conceived the S-400 anti-aircraft missile, the Iskander surface to surface missile, and possibly the Satan II ICBM Putin was just bragging about yesterday after it underwent a test launch. The facility also is responsible for developing space technology.
This research facility burned to the ground this week. Several people were killed (4-5 at least), and the place is a total loss. The cause of the fire has not been disclosed, or I think discovered. But here in the middle of a war, immediately after a test launch of a next gen missile, Russia's missile research facility has been turned to ashes. I am still trying to wrap my head around this one.
Anyway, some video:
https://twitter.com/PaulJawin/status...38831241203713...
Additionally, a second fire of unknown origin broke out shortly after the one in Tver. This blaze totally destroyed Russia's largest chemical plant. This facility was in Kineshma, a city 250 miles east of Moscow. It was the most important producer of solvents in Russia.
See it burning here:
https://twitter.com/ijohnsu.../statu...74938326618113...
Details here:
https://theworldnews.net/.../russia-s-biggest-chemical...
Two absolutely crucial facilities have been destroyed by mystery fires in the past 24 hours in Russia.

[68RR]

Friday Night Update:
Tonight's update is going to be focused on what is happening in Russia.
1. This week, Putin gave a speech touting the newest generation nuclear armed intercontinental ballistic missile, which we call the Satan II, after Russia test fired it. The PR move was designed to scare and intimidate the West.
2. Shortly after he gave that speech and the test was carried out successfully, Russia's main rocket and missile research center, located in Tver, caught fire and burned to the ground. Four military rocket scientists were killed when they jumped from their offices to avoid the flames and were killed on impact with, presumably, concrete. One other was killed in the fire and lots of people were hurt in the fire.
The facility looked like a 25,000 square foot run-down office complex, inside of which the latest gen rockets and missiles were being designed. The rockets and missiles hitting Ukraine right now? Designed here in Tver. The Satan II presumably had been developed here as well.
Additionally, I did read that there was a satellite communication and control center located here. Keep that in mind as you read on.
The facility was a total fire loss. The complex is a burnt husk.
3. A few hours after the Tver fire, the largest chemical plant in Russia caught fire and burned. Extent of the damage is not known for sure, but I've seen reports that it was heavily damaged. This facility was the largest provider of solvents in Russia.
I very well could be wrong, as I am no chemist and science was way not my strong point in school, but I think this plant produced two, possibly three of the critical ingredients for both solid fueled rockets and liquid fueled ones. Russian reports dating to 2016 talk about building a plant 250 miles east of Moscow to produce Hydrazine, one of the liquid fuel ingredients.
The plant that burned is 250 miles east of Moscow and has a list of chemicals it produces for the commercial market, and several are very close to Hyrdazine. My guess is they aren't going to list the chemicals they produce for the Russian military on their website, so I'm sort of reading tea leaves here.
Additionally, this facility manufactures at least one variant of glycol. Use for various forms of glycol include: a.) Anti-freeze for vehicles. and b.) rocket fuel. The US Trident II uses a fuel made from NEPE-75:[7] Nitrate ester, plasticized polyethylene glycol-bound HMX, Aluminum, ammonium perchlorate.
4. Today (Friday), another fire broke out in a critical piece of Russian aerospace infrastructure. This was in Korolyov, the cradle of Russia's space program.
This is a city of about 225,000 that includes many key companies that produce rockets, missiles, anti-tank weapons, and Russia's space mission control facility is based here. Like NASA's Houston complex.
Exactly what caught fire here is unclear. There are sources saying it was the mission control center. Others are saying it was a building next to the mission control center.
The most believable sources, along with the video of the fire, suggest the fire started in an industrial part of the city, not their mission control complex. Lots of military production goes on in this area, but it is unclear what was burning, how much was damaged, and what the building on fire's purpose was. The local Russian media reported the fire broke out while a construction crew was working on a roof.
My own guess is that it was an artillery plant from the WWII era that had been converted to make surface to surface missiles, the kind of which are being used against targets in Ukraine right now.
Fire video here: https://twitter.com/Chaudha.../statu...82840783429632...
And here:
https://twitter.com/ruisald.../statu...22790744154112...
5. Also today, an important hydroelectric dam on the Kuban River outside of Krasnodor suddenly failed after heavy rains. The exact damage and extent of downstream flooding is not known yet. However, this is an important area in the logistical support for the Russian troops in Southern Ukraine. The rail and road net from the mainland to Sevastopol and the Kerch peninsula all go through Krasnodor. If the rails or roads have been flooded, it will impact the resupply effort for the Russian troops fighting from Kherson to Mariupol.
There is no evidence of sabotage or any sort of attack. But this has happened.
Video of the damn break: https://twitter.com/TWMCLtd/status/1517532527493365760...
6. A Russian train carrying food derailed outside of Belgorod, the border city that is a central supply hub for the Russian troops operating in Ukraine between Kharkiv and Izium and along the Sieverodonetsk Pocket. Ukrainian sources report that "rail partisans" are disrupting traffic and have damaged infrastructure in four regions of Russia and Belarus.
7. Russian media is reporting that British SAS special operations teams are in Lviv teaching Ukrainians to be saboteurs.
See the article below.
https://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-...ost_type=share
Imagery: Before and after of the Kuban River dam. The derailed train.
More this weekend.

[AnthonyS]

Originally Posted by Gasser64

Fog of war. We'll never know most of it. We'll just get some bullet points 8 years from now, and a good portion of them will be missing.

I am curious about the mentality of the mercenaries and other paid help of the azov battalion. It's their job to know what they're up against. So why would they sign up to fight the russian army at that big ironworks? Wouldn't they know it's a lost cause, and that they're most likely going to die? It's difficult to spend your pay when you are dead.

As long as it’s poor people killing other poor people the globalists are happy. You can guarantee they were lied to about the support and arms they’d get.

[Gasser64]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGuK9xVw7EA

[AnthonyS]

I’m so shocked to learn the Ghost of Kiev was fake propaganda…….

[68RR]

Mid-Week Ukraine Update:
1. The Russian offensive grinds on with extremely limited gains and high casualties. The Russians are showing slightly better cooperation between battalion task groups, but still no true cohesion to their operations. Morale in the Russian army is very low. Getting units to attack has become more difficult, forcing senior officers to be present near the front lines.
2. There are increasing reports of disorder in the ranks of the Russian battalion task groups. If Ukrainian radio & cell phone intercepts of Russian communications are to be trusted, some very disturbing things have happened. Among them:
a.) A senior Russian officer complaining bitterly that his men will not advance unless he threatens to have them shot.
b.) Russian soldiers telling their families that they are going to wound themselves (Self-Inflicted Wounds SIW) in order to get home.
c.) One Russian BTR armored car crew got into such a ferocious argument inside their vehicle that one of them detonated a grenade, killing everyone.
d.) One Russian soldier called home to his mother and started discussing raping people and the torture and murder of prisoners who remained defiant even as he and his comrades severed their fingers, toes and penises. His mother kept calling the Ukrainians subhumans and fully supported the things he mentioned, including shoving barbed wire into POW's anuses.
e.) The NY Post reported a conversation between another Russian soldier and his wife that was another shocker. The soldier's wife gave him permission to rape Ukrainian women, provided he wore condoms.
These sorts of anecdotal stories need to be treated carefully. But collectively, if true, they paint a picture of an army with such poor discipline and such depraved behavior that it lacks the capacity to win, while at the same time generating massive moral and physical resistance on the part of the Ukrainian population.
2. The Sievierodonetsk Pocket:
The Russians have deployed 22 Battalion Tactical Groups in the Izium area, pushing down southward toward Barvinkove and Slovyansk in hopes of linking up with forces fighting north from Popasna and cutting off the Ukrainian forces in the pocket. In recent days, the Russians in the Izium area have captured about 20 kilometers of territory. They have lost thousands of troops, killed and wounded to take it.
In the first week and a half of this Easter Offensive, the Russians lost enough tanks and armored personnel carriers to equip 11 BTG's. There are reports of small Russian units being counter-attacked, cut off and virtually destroyed. In one case, an understrength mech company found themselves surrounded. Their senior officer stayed behind to give his men chance to break out. Nineteen got back to Russian lines along with only one of their BMPs.
There has been no breakthrough achieved anywhere in the fighting around the pocket. There are an estimated 60 Russian BTG's from Izium around to Sievierodonetsk and back around southwest to Popasna. Remember 125 or so went into Ukraine in the initial offensive, so this reflects an enormous commitment of combat power by the Russians.
The Ukrainians actually have more battalions in the line and in reserve here, counting their reservists/territorials. It is quite possible the Ukrainian defenders outnumber the Russian attackers.
The Russians continue to grind on in what one military affairs specialist called French WWI style tactics. Each attack begins with a massive artillery bombardment, then a ponderously slow advance by ground troops. The coordination and combined arms capabilities of the Russian army is generally poor and getting worse as the losses mount, so the attacks are unable to rip a decisive hole in the Ukrainian defenses. Those defenses, by the way, are a mixture of very well-prepared fortified positions and mobile forces fighting delaying actions.
As a result of this development, artillery is becoming increasingly important to the balance of power around the Pocket. The US, Canada, Australia and other Western nations are now supplying long-range artillery to the Ukrainians. Ukrainian artillery units are training on them outside Ukraine as well.
We have also given them MLRS multiple rocket artillery tracks whose firepower and range is practically unrivaled on this battlefield. Not sure if the Ukrainians used a US-delivered MLRS or one of their own systems, but last week they discovered the Russian Army's chief-of-staff was going to be in the Izium area for a meeting with senior level officers. The Ukrainians smothered the meeting area with an MLRS barrage. Reports are very sketchy and should be taken with a grain of salt, but some state the chief of staff took a shrapnel wound to the lower leg, while another general was killed. Others say the chief of staff left the area just before the rockets impacted. There were casualties among the senior officers--reportedly almost two dozen--along with Russian special forces troops who were providing security. Ukrainians claimed the attack inflicted about 200 casualties.
3. The Russians have assaulted the steel works in Mariupol and have fought their way into the complex. About a hundred civilians escaped the area earlier this week. It is not clear if the Russians have been able to secure a foothold in the nuclear bunker system under the steel works or if the fighting has been entirely above ground so far.
4. One unconfirmed report: Eleven Ukrainian fighter pilots are training on F-16s in Eastern Europe.
5. Airframes and spare parts have been supplied by the West to the Ukrainians. Some reports are suggesting that some of these came out of Iraq, where the US captured them during the Global War on Terror.
6. Brits are now supplying Ukraine with Brimstone precision guided missiles. These are akin to US Hellfire anti-tank missiles, but with greater flexibility. They can be air launched or ground launched, and are designed for use against mass formations of armor. They are guided both by laser designators and by radar. There are reports that they can be used against ships.
7. Turning to the Black Sea, several developments:
a. Russia has pulled a number of its amphibious warfare landing ships out of Sevastopol and rebased them in the Eastern Black Sea.
b. Ukrainian drones sank two Russian Raptor patrol boats this week with missile strikes.https://twitter.com/kemal_115/status...22750084763648...
c. The Brits and Norwegians are sending long-range, surface launched anti-ship missiles to Ukraine. These systems have the capability of hitting Russian ships anywhere in the Western Black Sea, including in port at Sevastopol, which is possibly the reason the landing ships moved east.
This is actually an humanitarian effort. By denying the Western Black Sea to Russian ships, and using SU-27 fighter-bombers in conjunction with NATO AWACs airborne radar aircraft to deny the airspace to Russian strategic bombers, the Ukrainians can reopen the port of Odesa and start shipping wheat by towed barges to Romania. There the wheat can be transferred to NATO-flagged ships and sent south to North Africa and the Middle East.
This is literally going to help mitigate the growing catastrophe of food shortages already hammering Egypt, Lebanon and other African & Middle Eastern nations. Ukrainian wheat is vital to the world's ability to eat, and getting that pipeline flowing again will forestall countless deaths by starvation later this year in the regions most dependent on Ukrainian imports.
8. Wheat:
a.) Russians have been targeting wheat warehouses with bombs and missiles.
b.) The Ukrainian wheat stocks they've captured in the areas they now control are being removed to Russia, signaling that the Russians intend to starve the Ukrainians in the occupied zones as they did in the 1930s.
c.) Russian state tv ran a show where its talking heads discussed how great it would be to steal Ukrainian wheat and send it to the Chinese. They did this about the same time they ran video simulations on state TV of nuclear attacks on the UK and their talking heads discussed how quickly different nuclear missile and torpedo systems could destroy London.

[68RR]

9. Putin:
At least two sources, the Sun in the UK and the NY Post here in the States, have reported Putin needs cancer surgery and will turn power over to one of his hard line FSB cronies who is all-in on the Ukrainian effort and very anti-west. I have no idea if this is true.
Last night, a small UK media outlet reported that the Kremlin is on high alert as coup rumors are spreading through Moscow. This source reported the conspirators are a combination of FSB officers and military generals. See the full story here: https://twitter.com/CityAM/status/1521835763259871233
10. Russian losses now are estimated at 24,500 killed in action. This would be mean they've lost about 6,000 troops since the Easter Offensive began. Figure on three wounded for every killed, and the picture is very grim for the Russians--almost 75,000 combat losses in a force that originally totaled between 180-200k. British reports suggest the Russian army has lost 25% of its combat power in 69 days of battle.
An indicator on how desperate their supply situation is: An abandoned Grad rocket launcher was captured and photographed by Ukrainains. The tires were in a deplorable state--half rotted out and several had blown. Embossed on the tire walls were the words, "Made in the USSR." These were tires manufactured for export, mainly to India, back in the 80s and early 90s. It is possible the factory that made them did not retool for years after the collapse, but even assuming they kept producing them for 10 years, that would make the tires at least 20 years old.
11. Attacks inside Russia continue. Oil targets, bridges, rail lines, and missile production facilities have all been hit in the last week. There was also an unexplained fire at a Russian airbase in the Far East. No word on if that was unrelated to the ongoing sabotage effort.
12. Belarus announced military maneuvers and training exercises are going to commence soon.
13. NATO is deploying a rapid response task force to Romania.
Imagery: Maps from the different fronts as of today, Russian known BTGs deployed to Izium, full table of estimated Russian losses to May 4, and Russian naval losses in the Black Sea.

[AnthonyS]

Sorry no one cares about the Ukraine anymore; they all have babies to dismember.

[Strychnine]

Originally Posted by 68RR

Mid-Week Ukraine Update:
1. The Russian offensive grinds on with extremely limited gains and high casualties. The Russians are showing slightly better cooperation between battalion task groups, but still no true cohesion to their operations. Morale in the Russian army is very low. Getting units to attack has become more difficult, forcing senior officers to be present near the front lines.
2. There are increasing reports of disorder in the ranks of the Russian battalion task groups. If Ukrainian radio & cell phone intercepts of Russian communications are to be trusted, some very disturbing things have happened. Among them:
a.) A senior Russian officer complaining bitterly that his men will not advance unless he threatens to have them shot.
b.) Russian soldiers telling their families that they are going to wound themselves (Self-Inflicted Wounds SIW) in order to get home.
c.) One Russian BTR armored car crew got into such a ferocious argument inside their vehicle that one of them detonated a grenade, killing everyone.
d.) One Russian soldier called home to his mother and started discussing raping people and the torture and murder of prisoners who remained defiant even as he and his comrades severed their fingers, toes and penises. His mother kept calling the Ukrainians subhumans and fully supported the things he mentioned, including shoving barbed wire into POW's anuses.
e.) The NY Post reported a conversation between another Russian soldier and his wife that was another shocker. The soldier's wife gave him permission to rape Ukrainian women, provided he wore condoms.
These sorts of anecdotal stories need to be treated carefully. But collectively, if true, they paint a picture of an army with such poor discipline and such depraved behavior that it lacks the capacity to win, while at the same time generating massive moral and physical resistance on the part of the Ukrainian population.

What a fucking shitshow

[Rick Modena]

Originally Posted by Strychnine

What a fucking shitshow

looks as though Professor J. Mearsheimer was right all along. Let them attack the country of Ukraine, it will bankrupt them.

Reading all of this info shows how much their military has gone the way of democracy.

[Labora]

Originally Posted by Rick Modena

looks as though Professor J. Mearsheimer was right all along. Let them attack the country of Ukraine, it will bankrupt them.

Reading all of this info shows how much their military has gone the way of democracy.

Seems to be the case, just have to wonder if they will push the big red button at some point out of desperation.

Sounds like they are having a lot of internal strife and even sabotage with various buildings getting lit up.