Must be a common skill among Ukrainians, really. Even the women.
I originally saw this on The Guardian blog. I wanted a link with the satellite coverage. Yes they are towing artillery. Lots of ARTILLERY. (thats on the guardian blog).
It must be a mixed blessing. The Ukrainian’s can see a whole lot of death in their future and there’s not much they can do. The Ukrainians need massive airpower to stop a convoy. Something the West refuses to give them.
It’ll take awhile to pick off a few vehicles and hopefully disrupt the convoy. I guess the Ukrainian military will use the same strategy that worked near Kiev.
Hopefully those massive weapons shipments to Ukraine that we’ve heard about recently are starting to arrive and can be put into action fast.
Perhaps more worrisome is that Putin has apparently appointed Army Gen. Alexander Dvornikov to be the overall commander of the entire invasion. AIUI there was formerly no overall coordination. Also, Dvornikov is apparently a ruthless butcher, judging from his actions in Syria in support of Assad.
Drones were effective against the convoy near Kyiv. Hopefully the Ukrainian’s have been restocked.
I think we’ll see better tactics with an experienced Russian general. General Dvornikov won’t be as easily defeated. The upcoming battles will be different.
I hope the supply chain and secure communication issues will still be a problem for the Russians.
Another one bites the dust.
Guardian blog
Perhaps another such unfortunate accident might befall the esteemed Army Gen. Alexander Dvornikov, aka “Butcher of Syria”, who now heads up the whole show.
I once reported someone on another website–it was about 10 years ago–for being in possession of an “expired” Co-60 source (yellow and magenta radioactive danger sign still affixed to it and all) that he had obtained as part of the collection of someone who had worked at a nuclear power plant (I believe in PA). Before I reported him, I advised him over PM that it wasn’t smart to have such a thing and Co-60 in particular is known for its longish half-life and he should consider turning it in. His reply was along the lines of “I doubt he [referring to the original owner] would be that stupid [to have brought home a live source].”*
So I reported him. Not to the forum’s moderators, mind you, but to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Who showed up at his door a few days later and confiscated the source (because it turns out that’s the sort of thing you’re not supposed to be able to carry away from a nuclear power plant, duh). The good news was it had in fact decayed sufficiently over the decades as to be mostly inert/minimally detectable. At that moment or going forward, anyway.
*But as incidents like soldiers camping out around Chernobyl (and frankly the original nuclear reactor accident in 1986) as well as things like the Goiânia accident show us is that actually, yes, people are “that stupid,” time and time again.
That Putin…well, he’s just an excitable boy.
He may be a butcher, but that doesn’t make him a good general. The war in Syria is still being fought and against opponents who are no where near as unified as the Ukrainians nor with a fraction of the international arms and intelligence support the Ukrainians are receiving.
Yeah, when I heard he was put in charge my main wonder is if he was any better than the other generals at doing things that were useful militarily. Because it’s rare that shelling civilian buildings to rubble is actually useful, the other generals seem to grasp how to do that just fine, and it seems that is all he’s known for. .
Has the situation changed to the point that the Ukrainians can make full use of the air assets they DO have? If not, there’s no point in giving them planes that they cannot effectively use.
That’s my thinking. It was the Pentagon; not the US State Department that sunk the Polish MiG deal. That was a military decision; not a political one.
I thought Ukraine had a small air force. They can’t risk losing too many planes. That’s just my impression.
The ISW assessment from April 9 (so yesterday as of this posting), said not to read too much into what we’re hearing about this new command structure or Russia’s attempts to regenerate a fighting force.
About Dvornikov:
This simplification of the Russian command structure may not resolve all of Russia’s command problems, however. Most of the reinforcements flowing into the Donbas region are drawn from other military districts, for one thing.[24] The active Russian offensive drive from Izyum to the southeast relies on the concentration of Russian forces around Kharkiv that draws in turn on the logistics hub of Belgorod in Russia—both in areas nominally under Zhuravlyov’s control. Russian forces will likely continue to struggle to establish coherent and efficient command and control arrangements for the foreseeable future.
About their fighting force:
We assess that the Russian military will struggle to amass a large and combat-capable force of mechanized units to operate in Donbas within the next few months. Russia will likely continue to throw badly damaged and partially reconstituted units piecemeal into offensive operations that make limited gains at great cost.[1] The Russians likely will make gains nevertheless and may either trap or wear down Ukrainian forces enough to secure much of Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts, but it is at least equally likely that these Russian offensives will culminate before reaching their objectives, as similar Russian operations have done.
The dozens of Russian battalion tactical groups (BTGs) that retreated from around Kyiv likely possess combat power that is a fraction of what the numbers of units or total numbers of personnel with those units would suggest.
The Russian armed forces likely have few or no full-strength units in reserve to deploy to fight in Ukraine because of a flawed mobilization scheme that cannot be fixed in the course of a short war.
It goes on to say that there are continuing reports of low morale, troops wanting to quit, refusing orders, etc.
Is that Roland?
One and the same. 
Should sanctions be tied to the return of lands taken from Ukraine in 2014?
Sanctions ending would almost certainly be a part of a peace treaty signed by both sides, along with security guarantees for Ukraine. So it would depend on the terms of that treaty as to whether Russia keeps Crimea. And that would likely depend on how the fighting goes.
Personally, I think sanction relief for Russia should be tied to Putin and his advisors facing trial in an international criminal court.
Well that would be an effective way to completely preclude the possibility of a negotiated end to the killing.