Well, there’s a lot of pro-Putin types out there pressing our government to cut aid to Ukraine already. Whether they’re idiots or bought and paid for I won’t venture a guess.
Agreed, but that is a conversation for a different thread.
(deleted).
I don’t think Ukraine is satisfied with Russia having taken territory, or likely to be willing to accept the current boundary lines.
I suspect Putin wants to be able to make noises along the lines of ‘See! We offered a truce! It’s all Ukraine’s fault we’re still fighting!’
Biden has signed executive orders about sanctions on Russia. Hopefully this puts more uncomfortable pressure on Putin.
Yes, I can see that comment was a step or two beyond the article I’d posted. My apologies; I’ll try to do better at staying on point.
Back on point: Are there available sources that are tracking the kinds and scope of sanctions being imposed on Russia, and the degree to which they’ve been effective over time? Assessments of how much farther the Russian economy can be compromised by them, and by the pressures of maintaining the war, before going into a tailspin? Is Putin (as far as anyone outside the Kremlin can really tell) getting a true picture of the state of the economy and his military assets?
Obviously Western governments aren’t going to reveal a lot of what their intelligence operations know on those questions, though that knowledge must affect their ongoing policy decisions about further Ukrainian support and Russian sanctions.
He started a war saying he wanted to rid the world of Ukrainian Nazis. It’s not like he cares how stupid he sounded about comparing Ukraine with a regime that wanted to take over neighboring countries.
Surviving and dead crew members were recovered.
Can’t ask for better confirmation.
Ukraine is breaking away from the Russian tradition of celebrating Christmas in January this year. It’s their first one on December 25th. Not breaking news on the war, I know, but topical. I hope the mods don’t mind.
Here’s a non-X source on the icebreaker fire.
Fire briefly breaks out on Russian nuclear-powered icebreaker | Reuters
IMO it’s way past time we stop citing X for anything.
5 aircraft recently shot down based on the two cited reports.
Russia must be changing strategy. They have been keeping their important fighter bombers safe and away from direct combat.
Either that or Ukraine has gotten better with siting/using their Anti-Aircraft systems. They may also be bringing some of the Western systems online.
Another symbolic shift towards Europe and Western traditions.
The Guardian feed
I’ve seen some speculation that the Dutch F-16’s are already in theatre. F-16’s with AMRAAM’s could explain the situation.
Well, it’s time to break out the “you’ve lost another ship” meme from Hunt for Red October. Ukraine has hit Ropucha-class large landing craft Novocherkassk, probably with Storm Shadow ALCMs. The ship, a rather large vessel primarily used for logistics (i.e. moving materiel around), was reportedly carrying a full load of Shahed drones. Video shows absolutely immense secondary detonations, and photos of the aftermath that have surfaced on Telegram show a mishapen heap of twisted wreckage, not a ship.
Ships of this type have previously been damaged and destroyed, most recently in the attack on Sevastopol that also damaged an attack sub, and back in the opening months of the war in a ballistic missile attack on a couple of ships in Berdyansk which sunk one and damaged another.
Long twitter thread detailing what is known:
For those complaining about twitter as a source, as sample of the alternative:
news is - another RU ship out of comissión:
As Inspector Clouseau might have said:
ButlerPort Captain: But that is a priceless landing ship!
ClouseauZelenskyy: Naht anymaahr.
And thanks for the non-twitter links.
Unfortunately, Twitter remains the best place for English-speakers to stay up to date on the war. Telegram is actually the primary source for much of it, but it’s all in Russian and Ukrainian.
Unfortunately mainstream media reports like the BBC article above are still publishing Russian official statements with way to much credulity.
The videos in the twitter thread linked above, which are themselves from various telegram channels, show the ship practically vaporized. There’s one video showing a largish chunk of the ship (couple square metres of some sort of plate steel/aluminum) that’s been geolocated to 650m from ship’s location. Windows shattered in a pretty wide radius by the blast wave. It is true that they managed to put out the fire. The port functioning normally? Suuuure. Casualty report probably downplayed by an order of magnitude, possibly two.