Not much Russian movement over the weekend, but heavy fighting and shelling continues.
Mariupol is still holding out.
Mykolaiv is still holding out after three days of heavy fighting. Good story in the NYT.
Chuhuiv, in the Kharkiv region, was recaptured by the Ukrainian military, and two Russian commanders killed.
In the course of hostilities, the city of Chuhuiv was liberated. The occupiers suffered heavy losses in personnel and equipment. Lieutenant Colonel Dmitry Safronov, Commander of the 61st Separate Marine Brigade of the Russian Armed Forces, and Lieutenant Colonel Denis Glebov, Deputy Commander of the 11th Separate Airborne Assault Brigade of the Russian Armed Forces, were killed.
– General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine
Ukraine now seems to be launching attacks on the Russian column approaching Kyiv from the east, and their long supply line.
Interesting photos posted here purporting to show a part of northern Ukraine where the Russian convoy is trying to pass. Ukrainians may be deliberately flooding the lands around the main highways, keeping Russian units trapped on the roads and unable to use the surrounding fields to untangle their lines and get moving again.
I remember reading the farmers burned their fields to deny the Germans any food in WWII.
I’m not surprised they’re flooding them to impede the Russians.
Just watched Steve1989Mre review of Ukrainian MRE. OMG, that is a lot of fatty food. 4000 calories. That’s 2 days for me. There’s plenty of food to share with civilians. I could easily see 2 soldiers sharing one MRE.
The use of the letter "Z" on Russian tanks & such materiel has been raised on the intertubes…
It is not a letter in the Cyrillic alphabet
Does it mean something? Perhaps Russian for “Za pobedy” = “Victory” or “Zavod” (“The West”). Nyet!
It may/is a lot of things:
helps to tell the difference on a battlefield from Us and Them - esp. when Us is using the same kind of equipment as Them (though sure with a can of spraypaint anything can happen)
It is meant to be an incendiary symbol. It is used on storefronts and vehicles inside Russia (sorry no pics yet). Some Russian gymnast drew it on his outfit before the medal ceremony when he came in third in a competition against a silver medalist from Ukraine
As a poster on Fark commented - perhaps it is a really clever lingual pun:
Z=Russian Federation
Not Z=Ukrainians
Ukrainians are Not Z’s.
“de-nazification” and all. Hard-ee-har-har.
It’s going to be a symbol of this war (aka, “World War Z”) and what side you are on in any case. And is that letter pronounced “Zee” or “Zed”?
Welp, here are the demands - what Putin really wants. Absolutely not a surprise at all:
Dmitry Peskov said Moscow was demanding that Ukraine cease military action, change its constitution to enshrine neutrality, acknowledge Crimea as Russian territory, and recognise the separatist republics of Donetsk and Lugansk as independent states.
An angle I haven’t seen us discussing - but seems awfully important …
I assume that nobody in the high contested areas like Kiev “got paid” at the end of the month … which brings me to the question of “economics during war”, especially in very virtual/digital environments (eg. normally paying by CC or swiping your debit card)
of course there are “cash savings”, etc… but how does life go on in Kiev under such circumstances … ATM willl not be refilled, donno if banks or payment terminals of CC are working, etc…
would CC let you ramp up debt (if they were working) with millions of refugees leaving the country?
anybody have any experience from past crisis centers?
I assume cash-is-king - which gives me a bit of the shivers if I proyect myself into this type of scenario (w/ probably less than $200,- in cash in my house as we speak)
Wouldn’t a lot of people still have jobs during the war? People in Briton still carried on during the Blitz. It would depend on the business and type of job. A office worker might get a job in a defense plant.
The Russians are attacking naval bases.
Naval bases are focused on supporting ships and their crews. Do they have defenses against land troops?
I had never thought about it before. My dad was in the navy and he definitely didn’t have any infantry training. Never dug a foxhole in his entire career.
Looking at the map, it looks grim for Kyiv. Not sure where the thought that there wasn’t much movement this weekend comes from…especially the east. The 3 major prongs coming from that direction seem to be in their staging positions for the assault on Kyiv. The only significant delayed prong I see is the one coming out of Crimea going north and west, and there was movement even there over the weekend. Judging by how quickly they are moving, I’d say they should be in position and the real assault on Kyiv will happen by the end of the week, at most. And that doesn’t mean no fighting will take place…my guess is Russia will intensify their artillery and missile strikes into Kyiv during that time frame.
In 1999, oligarchs Abramovich and Leviev were enlisted by Putin to create the Federation of Russia Jewish Communities. It’s purpose was to undermine the existing organization active in Jewish civil society, it’s leader was arrested and exiled shortly afterwards.
It is not surprising that this organization, and the oligarchs at its helm, have multiple strong connections with Trumps. Allegedly, Mrs. Abramovich is one of Ivanka’s closest friends.
Just following up on this, I heard a report on the BBC this morning from a BBC reporter in Russia expanding on this topic (no link, sorry). He said that the state has completely clamped down on all traditional media. He said that most Russians still get their news primarily via television and that is entirely state controlled now. Russians can access outside news sources via social media if they use a VPN, and many younger Russians are definitely doing this, but it’s not clear how many.
People are still going to their jobs. Putin and his ministry of propoganda warned those working for defense industries not to go to work today as Russia would be bombing those places.
If the Guardian relaying a tweet from the Ukrainian Army can be believed - 30 people went to their jobs in a bakery outside of Kiev today and only 17 survived. True or not - nobody questions the plausibility of people going to their jobs.
Similar to the one you are showing there (I don’t know how to insert one of those so I didn’t). Your map isn’t showing the red pushing in from the north (east of the lake), but mine does. And watching the progress in real-time over the weekend, they were able to make significant progress pushing to those positions over the weekend. Even on your map here, however, you can see that Russia has got forces (those red lines and arrows) encircling Kyiv almost completely in the north…and they are in positions to stage from both for FOBs and artillery spotting/coordinating. They have good lines back to their own supply dumps at this point, presuming they have some sort of security out for their logistics.
And if you look at your first map, the prong coming out of Crimea made progress this weekend as well and looks to be, oh, make it 3-4 days from completing the encirclement and cutting off the Ukrainian army that is east of the Dnieper.
I posted this in another thread, and it’s 2 days old (now) but you can watch the progression of Russian movement in it.
