I hope this doesn’t extend any deeper in Ukrainian 's military. What did the Generals do? Offer to surrender? Betray state secrets to Russia?
There’s always been a concern that the military might not support Zelensky’s government.
CNN Live war blog
They sound just like our stateside pansy-ass Republican snowflakes.
I’m not sure about the other guy but the speculation has been that this guy let the Russians take bridges across the Dneiper River without resistance, which essentially sabotaged the defence of Kherson.
Thank you BeepKillBeep. I was hoping it wasn’t an attempted coup.
It’s bad enough that strategic bridges were captured with no resistance.
Are Russian forces withdrawing because they said they would?
Are Russian forces withdrawing because Russia is about to carpet bomb Kyiv into dust?
The withdrawal looks like good news, but I don’t trust it.
Personally, I don’t think Russia will reform unless they start seeing combat in their own territory and start losing land. Going after Russia might be strategically more valuable than trying to liberate the Donbas, and probably easier to accomplish since there’s effectively an eternity of open targets.
This is the problem though.
Modnote: Reminder, keep politics out of breaking news threads. That jab is not permissible.
Sorry, crossed the line. Won’t happen again.
I caught that too. The commentator seemed to think it opened the door to Russian escalation and possible use of tactical nukes.
Right. 
Agreed. But to really go after Russia they’ll have to make some gains somewhere in the east. If not in Donbas, it would have to be further north. Maybe north of Kharkiv towards Belgorod and then working their way east / southeast? The other option would be to try to retake Crimea. I’m not sure which of those would be better.
Or gas the place, hoping to leave all those cultural monuments intact.
I really really hope not. But I wouldn’t put it past them.
Ukrainians must be aware of the possibility, though. I’m not sure how much they could do about it, beyond protecting enough people to stand as witnesses later. Can they shoot down enough incoming to reduce damage?
I know. Remember the Putin-inspired character in House of Cards? He was the smartest, cleverest, best-informed character in those episodes. It seemed like a plausible approximation of Putin, then. Now, it’s starting to seem like a flattering overestimation.
Good. Let’s hope this is merely a Lincoln-McClellan type thing (though that’s bad enough — any unnecessary retreat, defeat, or missed opportunity by the Ukrainians really sucks).
I’ve heard of “poison pill” but poison cookies?!?
The bastards!
Yeah, it does seem unbelievable. Which is why it makes me nervous.
Russia is running its military campaign against Ukraine out of Moscow, with no central war commander on the ground to call the shots, according to American officials who have studied the five-week-old war.
But it is hard to run a military campaign from 500 miles away, U.S. military officials said. The distance alone, they said, can lead to a disconnect between the troops who are doing the fighting and the war plans being drawn up in Moscow. Instead of streamlining the process, they said, Russia has created a military machine that is unable to adapt to a quick and nimble Ukrainian resistance.
A second senior American official said that Russian soldiers, who have been taught not to make a single move without explicit instructions from superiors, had been left frustrated on the battlefield, while Mr. Putin, Mr. Shoigu and General Gerasimov continued to plot increasingly out-of-touch strategy.
Armchair generals in Moscow… I wonder how honest the generals on the ground are when reporting back to them.
A dead general can’t lie. Or tell the truth. 
One of the items Ukraine has requested in terms of weapons is more drones. We’ve heard a great deal about they’ve used the few dozen Bayraktar drones purchased from Turkey to great effect. So when the US authorized an $800 Million aid package, is anyone else struck by how few drones we’re providing? We’ve promised 100 switchblade ‘kamikaze’ style drones. These are small single use drones launched from a mortar that are suitable for taking out small soft targets. There’s also a larger version that can take out a tank. AeroVironment Switchblade - Wikipedia
I’m sure the Ukrainian military will put them to good use, but again, I’m struck by the rather modest number of single use weapons that were offered here. Is there a reason we couldn’t have sent three or four times that number? It almost feels like they’re being used for their ‘test market’ potential.