Some damage done to the Nova Kakhovka dam, presumably by the Russians to make its road impassable to Ukrainian vehicles. Maybe also a warning that any attack here could see the dam destroyed completely.
An interesting discussion on the wrong lessons people are taking from the war (things like the tank is useless and drones dominate).
Of course, this is all their opinion but they have some knowledge in this area. Still, just a point for discussion and not to say they are 100% correct.
Video, I know…some of you hate it but there is no transcript I am aware of. (35 minutes long)
It would be unfair to distract from this thread, but I learned something from this article published in The New York Times Magazine about the antecedent causes of this war. It is paywalled, apparently, though in post four (?) a freelink is given via Ukraine Today - which described the summary as epic. It may or may not interest. The article is not brief, but is well written, informative, easy to follow, perhaps even accurate…
Ultra-right-wing Russian nationalist Alexander Dugin, often referred to in the media as “Putin’s brain”, has criticized the surrender of Kherson and alluded to the disembowelling of Putin.
The “‘king of the rains’ (read Frazer)” appears to be a reference to to The Golden Bough by James George Frazer, which reads:
I sometimes get the feeling that Putin might regret invading Ukraine.
Immediately move from a sovereign to a commissar dictatorship, that is, introduce an ideology.
Yeah, that’s the ticket. “We just need more ideology! If our glorious soldiers just had superior élan they would sweep all before them!”
I think what he’s saying is that the autocracy of Putin is basically a kleptocracy, in which everyone looks after their own personal interests, leading to a rotten and corrupt state. What is therefore needed is an autocracy based around ultranationalism, with an overt ideology in which people place love of the motherland of Russia above all else, so more like the Nazis.
But then they’ll have to invade Russia to get rid of the Nazis! Isn’t that supposedly what this was all about in the first place?
There are bad Nazis, and good Nazis, I guess.
(and Illinois Nazis, but we don’t talk about them.)
Their logic seems to be that the Nazis were Russia’s enemy and Russia defeated them, therefore Russia cannot be the Nazis. If Russia aren’t the Nazis, then the enemy of Russia must be the Nazis.
It’s all a mixture of cognitive dissonance and projection.
Deny explains a large part of the territory on Dnipro River left bank is uninhabited desert. There are a few towns along the river.
I suggest watching the first 8 mins while Deny discusses the Russians new position and how Ukraine can target highways into Crimea.
Just 15 miles/25 km from the city of Kherson is a curious small desert, Oleshky Sands. Just 7 miles/12 km across, it stands out on a satellite image, surrounded by green.
It seems that Ukraine has freed most of the population in Kherson Oblast from Russian control.
The Russians control a large area with small population. Hopefully Ukraine will regain control of that area next Spring.
Deny has mentioned HIMARS can target the highways from Crimea and disrupt supplies
Heartwarming video on CNN from Kherson:
I was thinking while reading that more of imperial Japan. “We’re the best and our troops fighting spirit will sweep over those who value their lives too much!”
What a wonderful moment for 
.
The government needs to think carefully about Donbas. It originally had a lot of separatists in 2014. The Russian population has probably increased significantly in the last 8 years. The separatist and Russian forces are dug in and it would require a lot of men and equipment to take full control of Donbas.
I’m not sure its worth the cost to retake all of Donbas. It will always be difficult to govern and Russian partisans may be a persistent problem for years. Perhaps Ukraine should retake Severodonetsk and start negotiating for peace?
Officials in Ukraine are probably talking late into the night about the next steps. There’s a lot to consider when moving into territory with a large Russian population.
Liberating Mariupol will be challenging.
A Russian starts to see through the blanket of lies:
Explosion at the Nova Kakhovka dam. Satellite photos of the damage were posted earlier in the thread.
I’d still say that the most strategically sound path forward would be to say that the Ukrainian mission is to give the Donbas and Crimea a fair and honest vote on secession. If they truly want to leave then they can leave but:
- It’s a vote among people who lived there pre-2014.
- The vote is managed by a neutral 3rd party.
- Prior to the vote, the regions will need to elect a panel of investigators to determine the foundations of the separatist movement, whether those were justified, and what the benefits and demerits of secession would be.
As you say, trying to take land where all you end up with is a bunch of people who hate you just isn’t all that great. But, it’s fairly likely that a lot of the separatist movement was engineered by Russia through their “Nazi” propaganda, broadcast into the region prior to 2014, and financing/arming rabble-rousers.
It’s like if a guy likes a married woman and convinces her that her husband is a serial killer. Yeah, she’s going to want to leave him and, no, she isn’t going to want to go back to him. First, the ex needs to establish that he’s completely open to whatever choice she makes, that his emails, his finances, and everything are open for her to investigate, etc. that he just wants to be allowed to offer evidence that it was all lies to begin with.
At the end of the day, there’s only one way to make someone like you and that’s by being likeable. You have to do whatever it takes to be liked by them. In this particular case, it means being the better man and saying that you’re just looking for a fair judgement, not unquestionable domination.
The whole world would agree that this agenda is fair. It would be very difficult for Russia to argue that Ukraine’s agenda towards the regions isn’t justifiable. Russia will say, “They’re Russian speaker killing Nazis”. And Ukraine will say that the majority of the country elected a Jewish Russian speaker - they’re clearly not mostly opposed to Russian speakers and also clearly they are not Nazis. Russia would say that the Kyiv government is corrupt and Ukraine would point out that most of the financial questionability was from people doing behind the scenes deals with Russia.
An independent, investigative panel is pretty likely to come down on the side of Ukraine.
If you openly fight to give people freedom and you negotiate to give them freedom and you trust that history is on your side, you’re a lot more likely to get buy-in. And, if you can’t get buy-in from them after that then, probably, it’s just as well to not have them.
You can’t kill a ton of people and have 8 years of occupation and then pretend any election would resemble “fair” in any sort of way. After the dissolution of the USSR both Crimea and the Donbas voted to be part of an independent Ukraine.
This. They already had a vote. If anybody in Ukraine wants to be Russian there’s a shit-ton of real estate in Russia they can move do. Sell out and move and don’t let the door hit you on the way out.
“Mayor Quimby is soft on crime! Why, he let Sideshow Bob, a notorious murderer, out of prison! We can’t re-elect Mayor Quimby. Vote Sideshow Bob.”