Here’s a piece on the Russian use of impersonator actors, with more examples:
Oh look, here’s some “news”.
Ukraine war: Russia’s Lavrov says ready to expand war aims - BBC News
It seems Sergei Lavrov is saying Russia is having to change it’s strategic objectives and needs to push further west into Ukraine, because of the presence of long range western weapons.
That sounds reasonable. Because it was never their intention to take the whole of Ukraine, and the 60 or so battalion tactical groups sent to surround Kiev in late February and early March were victims of a faulty GPS reading. Russia has clearly been victimized once again!
More bullets: UK announced another package- my comments in […].
- Over 20 M109 155 mm howitzers (possibly previously announced but OIP had ~60 M109’s so it’s possible it’s additional)
- 36 L119 105mm artillery guns
- 1,600 anti-tank weapons
- counter-battery radar systems
- over 50,000 rounds of ammunition
- hundreds of drones
- hundreds of loitering aerial munitions
Lithuania is sending additional M113’s, M577’s [M113s configured as command/commo posts], and ammunition.
France [always more circumspect] is sending more but has not announced it - TBD on whether the images/reports of 100’s of VAB’s [armored personnel carriers] as well as dozens of AMX-10RC’s [wheeled light/medium tank(ish) vehicle, 105mm cannon with both anti-armor and HE shells] going to Ukraine are accurate.
Just wanted to thank everyone for their information and analysis.
Come on Vlad, put a little effort into it. May just as well photoshop him into crowd scenes.
I just have to say I continue to be amused by this description.
I’m sure there are plenty of us quietly benefiting from the curation.
Olena Zelenska met with Biden and other officials at the White House. Hope she didn’t get covid. Volodymyr has enough problems without bringing that to Ukraine .
How come Volodymyr Zelensky ends with a Y and her name A? Is that a feature of the Russian language?
The war may all come down now to one thing; how fast Lockheed Martin can churn out GMLRS rockets.
16 Ukrainian HIMARS, although few in number, can go through thousands of rockets like nothing. The U.S. doesn’t have a whole lot in stock. When used, GMLRS has been massacring Russian forces with great effectiveness, but the resupply is a huge pain in the neck since America refuses to land cargo jets directly in Ukraine so all this stuff has to be driven from Poland, a slow and long process.
But if Lockheed Martin can make the rockets fast enough to meet demand, indefinitely, then Ukraine can HIMARS Russia all the way back to pre-Feb-24 borders.
100 missiles a day, delivered on a vehicle traveling at 40 mph is very little different from 100 missiles a day, delivered on a vehicle traveling at 800 mph. With the latter, your first delivery happens sooner but, other than that, once you have the pipeline set up and operational, 100 missiles a day is 100 missiles a day.
I know a smoking Russian school or church will be blamed on Ukraine HIMARS.
It’s an obvious step from Russian propaganda.
Blowing up Russian missiles on the ground before they can be used is saving lives.
This entire campaign has embarrassed the Russian military. Even if they find themselves somehow slowly conquering the entirety of Ukraine it has taken far too long for what a “great power” should take to overrun it’s neighbor.
The 2003 American invasion of Iraq is looking really good in comparison, performance wise. America sent an army all the way into Baghdad in three weeks with relatively little trouble or casualties - and that was halfway around the globe.
Meanwhile Russia can’t even get to Kyiv despite Ukraine being its neighbor.
That’s the difference between a well trained, professional army who take their duty to country seriously vs. a bunch of kleptocrats selected for their loyalty to Putin rather than military knowledge among the officers and conscripts forced into duty with poor training and limited supplies among the enlisted.
Ukraine has been preparing for this for 8 years and is being supplied with arms and intelligence by the most powerful military in the world and many others. Not that great a comparison, IMO.
Also, it remains to be seen how bad this is in the long term for them. If they’re embarrassed now, but get some land and wait to rebuilt and for Europe to begin to want gas more than they want to punish Russia… might be acceptable.
I saw an interview with Zelensky’s chief advisor a few years ago in which he said words to the effect of ‘Russia will take Crimea, then a couple of years later they will try to invade on a large scale. This is a war that is inevitable and the beginning of Ukraine as a nation will start after we win that war.’
I wish I could find a clip of that interview but it was very revealing. It was like he was a nationalist that wanted and expected this to happen.
Yes for Russian. I assume similar for Ukrainian.
Does anyone know if Draghi’s resignation (Italian PM) has any relevance to this thread?
Only insomuch as Draghi was considered a strong supporter of Ukraine and it appears some of his very loose coalition members were losing interest, more caught up in local issues like the tottering state of the Italian economy. But Draghi seems to have had multiple problems some of which may not even relate directly to him, but rather the mutual loathing by some of his coalition partners that were sick of bickering with one another.
I guess the main worry is that Italian political support for Ukraine will now wane or even cease. But losing Italy’s backing would not be a critical blow, just an unfortunate one. Only worrying if it is the first domino in a general backing away from Ukraine by other European states. On it’s own I would doubt it would set off such a chain reaction, but who knows.
It’s also the sort of thing that might cause Putin to think the western alliance is starting to crack like he’s thought from the beginning that it should, thus making him steadily less likely to settle for any kind of compromise.
I am far from sure that a long attritional war will favor Ukraine over time as many are claiming. This only holds true so long as they get a steady and continual infusion of war materiel. Please convince me otherwise.