The War in the Ukraine

Who Will Win

  • Ukraine

    Votes: 2 28.6%

  • Russia

    Votes: 1 14.3%

  • Nato

    Votes: 1 14.3%

  • The West

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • America

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Right

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Wrong

    Votes: 1 14.3%

  • Good

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Evil

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Putin

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Zelensky

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • God

    Votes: 1 14.3%

  • Prigozhin

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Chechnya

    Votes: 1 14.3%

  • Trump

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Total voters
    7
www.theglobeandmail.com

Ukraine fires six deputy defence ministers as heavy fighting continues in the east

No explanation was provided for the firings, but the Ukrainian government has been investigating accusations of corruption in the military related to purchasing equipment
www.theglobeandmail.com www.theglobeandmail.com

"The deputy defence ministers fired included Hanna Maliar, Vitalii Deyneha and Denys Sharapov, as well as the state secretary of the Ministry of Defense, Kostiantyn Vashchenko, were fired, according to the Telegram account of Taras Melnychuk, permanent representative of the Cabinet of Ministers.

Melnychuk provided no explanation of the firings, but the government has been investigating accusations of corruption in the military related to purchasing equipment. Rustem Umerov, a Crimean Tatar lawmaker who took over as defence minister, did not immediately issue a statement.

Reznikov was removed earlier this month after a scandal involving the defense ministry’s procurement of military jackets at three times their cost. Reznikov denied the allegations but resigned."
 
www.nytimes.com

Ukraine Has Gained Ground. But It Has Much Farther to Go

Ukraine’s counteroffensive has breached Russian defenses, but progress has been grueling and slow. Familiar obstacles, fresh troops and worsening weather lie ahead.
www.nytimes.com www.nytimes.com

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Yeah and we announced 650m in military aid in CAD over 3 years. US authorised 375m USD already allocated.
 
Jan Libourel said:
If those blue spots represent Ukraine's gains in the "Counteroffensive," that's a pretty paltry payoff for the huge losses in men and materiel!
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If they punch through the third line of defence at the biggest blue blob allegedly there is nothing to stop a blitzkrieg advance for another 100km into the sea before the onset of winter at which point the entire southern Russian command will collapse, surrender and/or scatter. This is of course pending the authorisation of 24B of additional aid sitting with Congress.
 
Fwiffo said:
If they punch through the third line of defence at the biggest blue blob allegedly there is nothing to stop a blitzkrieg advance for another 100km into the sea before the onset of winter at which point the entire southern Russian command will collapse, surrender and/or scatter. This is of course pending the authorisation of 24B of additional aid sitting with Congress.
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It looks like they have pierced the third line and are sending in IFVs to push through and exploit the gap. The potential is there to move a lot faster now, but I think the Russians have a lot more reserve mobility troops than this time last year- so they can put up a meat shield pretty quickly to blunt advances anywhere on the line.
 
Dropbear said:
It looks like they have pierced the third line and are sending in IFVs to push through and exploit the gap. The potential is there to move a lot faster now, but I think the Russians have a lot more reserve mobility troops than this time last year- so they can put up a meat shield pretty quickly to blunt advances anywhere on the line.
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That's not what the western media says. They said they are spread thin across the front lines with troops assigned to Bakhmut and for a failed offensive towards Kupiansk. It was so bad (what's left of?) the Vdv had to be 'parachuted' into Robotyne.

Mark Milley says they only have another three plus weeks of good fighting weather anyway. Whatever that is worth.
 
Fwiffo said:
That's not what the western media says. They said they are spread thin across the front lines with troops assigned to Bakhmut and for a failed offensive towards Kupiansk. It was so bad (what's left of?) the Vdv had to be 'parachuted' into Robotyne.
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VDV are reinforcing the front lines, acting as an elite mobile reaction force. Definitely within their wheelhouse, though it will sap their potential for offensive use in the future.

I get the sense there are more third-tier mobliks in the rear that could be used to blunt an advance. Hopefully I’ll be proven wrong this week.

Fwiffo said:
Mark Milley says they only have another three plus weeks of good fighting weather anyway. Whatever that is worth.
Click to expand...

Three weeks of fast moving fighting. I’m winter things big down to a slow crawl. If Ukraine don’t take ground soon, they have to wait until next year for a blitzkrieg. But the flip side is that if they take ground in the next few weeks, they will have the winter to reinforce and entrench the new line. A quick charge south now would be huge.
 
www.bbc.com

Electoral politics begin to bite into Ukraine support

On both sides of the Atlantic, cracks are beginning to form in Western nations' support for Ukraine.
www.bbc.com

"'People in Slovakia have bigger problems than Ukraine,' he said. That means - alongside Viktor Orban's Hungary - there are now two European Union countries ready to veto further collective EU action to support Ukraine.

Neighbouring Poland is also holding elections soon - and there too, doubts about supporting Ukraine have been aired. The ruling Law and Justice Party has promised to halt the import of cheap Ukrainian grain that Polish farmers oppose."

Did Hungary and Slovakia ever enthusiastically support them?
 
www.politico.com

‘It’s a survival issue’: Ukraine looks to arm itself as Western support slips

Even as Russian bombs rain down, Kyiv seeks to show that it’s open for business.
www.politico.com www.politico.com

“'After two years we need now to have another discussion because we cannot give, give, give and see our systems going down for Ukraine,' Gen. Stéphane Mille, chief of staff of the French Air and Space Force, recently told reporters in Washington. 'There is an option now to have some discussion between Ukraine [and] companies and then the finance will be a part where France could of course pay,' to help with production.

Adding to the troubles was Poland’s recent declaration that it would pause donations to Ukraine in order to shore up its own capabilities."
 
www.nytimes.com

Russian Troops Cede Ground and Strike Back, Frustrating Ukraine’s Counteroffensive

Military analysts say that Russian commanders have been using a tactic known as “elastic defense” to prevent Ukraine from holding villages and other positions as staging grounds for future attacks.
www.nytimes.com www.nytimes.com

"President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine visited troops near Kupiansk on Tuesday to hand out medals and inspect military equipment, including Leopard tanks that have been donated by the country’s NATO allies in Europe. His Telegram account posted a video of him in a forest shaking hands with a small group of soldiers, who appeared to include older men — a sign of the toll the war has taken on Ukraine."

Total war...
 
www.bbc.com

Russia returns four abducted Ukrainian children in Qatari deal

The return, part of a deal mediated by Qatar, could lead to the return of thousands more children.
www.bbc.com

Qatar. The world's exchange house. You want your Ukrainian kids back - you go to Qatar. You want your Iranian sanction money back - you go to Qatar. You want to fund Islamic fundamentalists - you deposit the money with the Qataris.
 
www.theglobeandmail.com

Ukraine uses U.S.-provided long-range missiles against Russia for first time

The version of the U.S. missile system that went to Ukraine will have a shorter range than the maximum distance the missiles can have
www.theglobeandmail.com www.theglobeandmail.com

"While some versions of the missiles can go as far as about 180 miles (about 300 kilometres), the ones sent to Ukraine have a shorter range and carry cluster munitions, which, when fired, open in the air, releasing hundreds of bomblets rather than a single warhead. According to a U.S. official, the ones delivered to Ukraine have a maximum range of a bit more than 100 miles (roughly 160 kilometres)."

Got to get all those bomblets released over your former land.
 
Really should have been the focus all along, and not the F16s:

news.yahoo.com

Sweden gets closer to providing Gripen fighters to Ukraine – Politico

The Swedish government is carefully preparing the ground for the potential delivery of Gripen fighter jets to Ukraine. Source: European Pravda, citing Politico. The article says that the decision by Norway, Denmark, Belgium and the Netherlands to deliver F-16 fighter jets to Kyiv has made the...
news.yahoo.com news.yahoo.com
 
www.bbc.com

How social media fuelled antisemitic violence in Dagestan, Russia

Before an outburst of violence, Telegram channels spread hate speech. The BBC has tracked messages inciting the public to gather at an airport where a flight from Tel Aviv was arriving.
www.bbc.com

"The Morning Dagestan channel has been associated with Ilya Ponomarev, a former Russian MP who defected to Ukraine in 2016 and was granted Ukrainian citizenship.

Ponomarev runs social media channels calling for protests in Russia and the overthrow of Vladimir Putin's regime.

On Monday, Ponomarev said that 'some time ago', he was 'contacted by a group of Islamists from Dagestan' whom he helped organise and finance rallies against Russia's invasion of Ukraine. While Ponomarev said that he had stopped supporting the channel in September 2022, his own statements contradict this claim. He called Utro Dagestan 'our channel' in August 2023, and also referred to the channel as part of his operations in September."

Everything can be explained through the 1 degree of separation via social media and online messaging platforms. Ukrainians tricked Muslim Russians to look for Jews arriving from Israel.
 
www.theglobeandmail.com

Ukraine’s train crews keep the ‘road of life’ moving despite Russia’s rockets

From soldiers headed for the front to civilians rebuilding their communities, Ukrainians depend on their national railway – the nation’s biggest employer – even as war make the journeys more dangerous
www.theglobeandmail.com www.theglobeandmail.com

“All of the leaders of the free world were passengers of Ukrainian Railways,”...with some photographs of every day travel.
 
www.theglobeandmail.com

Russia’s biggest drone strike in weeks hits critical infrastructure in western, southern Ukraine

Officials say Ukraine is bracing for a second winter of Russian air strikes on the energy system, which they warn is more vulnerable than it was last year
www.theglobeandmail.com www.theglobeandmail.com

"The air force said it shot down 24 'Shahed' drones out of 40 launched by Russia, the biggest drone attack in weeks to target Kharkiv in the northeast, Odesa and Kherson in the south and the region of Lviv on Ukraine’s border with Poland in the west."

Either the Iranian drones are getting better or the air defence is getting worse.
 
time.com

Inside Volodymyr Zelensky’s Struggle to Keep Ukraine in the Fight

“Nobody believes in our victory like I do. Nobody,” Zelensky told TIME in an interview after his trip to Washington, D.C.
time.com time.com

A damning account on all fronts. I have to wonder why another penny is spent on this war.

"'Another tells me that, most of all, Zelensky feels betrayed by his Western allies. They have left him without the means to win the war, only the means to survive it. 'He deludes himself,' one of his closest aides tells me in frustration. 'We’re out of options. We’re not winning. But try telling him that.'"

“'We’re not moving forward,' says one of Zelensky’s close aides. Some front-line commanders, he continues, have begun refusing orders to advance, even when they came directly from the office of the President. 'They just want to sit in the trenches and hold the line,' he says. 'But we can’t win a war that way.'"

"...the political leadership in Kyiv demanded an operation to 'retake' the city of Horlivka, a strategic outpost in eastern Ukraine that the Russians have held and fiercely defended for nearly a decade. The answer came back in the form of a question: With what? 'They don’t have the men or the weapons,' says the officer. 'Where are the weapons? Where is the artillery? Where are the new recruits?'

In some branches of the military, the shortage of personnel has become even more dire than the deficit in arms and ammunition. One of Zelensky’s close aides tells me that even if the U.S. and its allies come through with all the weapons they have pledged, 'we don’t have the men to use them.'"

"Ukraine’s armed forces so badly that draft offices have been forced to call up ever older personnel, raising the average age of a soldier in Ukraine to around 43 years. 'They’re grown men now, and they aren’t that healthy to begin with,' says the close aide to Zelensky. 'This is Ukraine. Not Scandinavia.'"

"Amid all the pressure to root out corruption, I assumed, perhaps naively, that officials in Ukraine would think twice before taking a bribe or pocketing state funds. But when I made this point to a top presidential adviser in early October, he asked me to turn off my audio recorder so he could speak more freely. 'Simon, you’re mistaken,' he says. 'People are stealing like there’s no tomorrow.'"
 
www.express.co.uk

Zelensky's ally turns on him as Ukraine president's approval ratings plummet

The comments from Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko show a significant rift within the Ukrainian elite after the unsuccessful counteroffensive against Russian forces.
www.express.co.uk www.express.co.uk

"People wonder why we weren’t better prepared for this war, why Zelensky denied until the end that it would come to this...People see who’s effective and who’s not. And there were and still are a lot of expectations. Zelensky is paying for mistakes he has made. At some point we will no longer be any different from Russia, where everything depends on the whim of one man."

"According to the recent internal Ukrainian polling reported in The Economist last month, President Zelensky's approval ratings stood at 32 percent.

The most widely trusted figure in Ukraine is General Valery Zaluzhny, the head of the armed forces, with an approval rating of 70 per cent. Meanwhile, Kyrylo Budanov, the country's spy chief, has a trust rating of 45 percent."


www.bbc.com

Ukraine war: Soldier tells BBC of front-line 'hell'

A Ukrainian soldier on the east side of the Dnipro river tells the BBC about life on the front line.
www.bbc.com www.bbc.com

"We paid for a lot of our own kit - buying generators, power banks and warm clothes ourselves. Now the frosts are coming, things will only get worse - the real situation is being hushed up, so no-one will change anything.

No-one knows the goals. Many believe that the command simply abandoned us. The guys believe that our presence had more political than military significance. But we just did our job and didn't get into strategy."

"There are a lot of young guys among us. We need people, but trained people, not the green ones we have there now. There are guys who had spent just three weeks in training, and only managed to shoot a few times.

It's a total nightmare. A year ago, I wouldn't have said that, but now, sorry, I'm fed up.....You'll laugh at this, but some of our marines can't even swim."
 
European allies have been studying Paris's plan to send troops to Ukraine for several weeks, the United States supported the idea, AFP reports.
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And Americans are always giving the French shit about being cowardly?
 
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