I don’t have an X account, and I can’t get that long thread you mention. All I can get is the first post, so it’s not really much help.
Moderating
No more complaints/defenses about Twitter/X in this thread please. Take it elsewhere.
What chances they have - that’s another question
It’s unfathomable how Putin’s government gets away with such heavy losses of Russian men. That’s a lot to suppress even for a totalitarian government
Think about (don’t discuss) the US public reaction to fighting in Iraq. Losses were actually very low, but IED’s took a toll. There were a lot of wounded coming home. Losses were all over the news. That’s the difference in free Western governments.
We can only hope history repeats itself. Losses in the Russo-Japanese War and World War I helped bring down Tsar Nicholas II. Perhaps Putin will suffer a similar grisly fate over Ukraine.
I have occasionally thought that Ukraine should record and circulate a song in Russian called “Mama, Your Boys Aren’t Coming Home”. Spreading fear and despondency is a common war tactic.
Back on breaking news: Ukraine claim they still hold part of Maryinka. The news summary from yesterday:
I know they’re unverified Ukrainian figures, but 355,750 Russian troops “lost” in less than two years sounds crazy bad.
(Also: Russia sent “dozens of attack drones” and only killed one person? That seems a rather poor ROI. Again: source is Ukraine though.)
A brave woman. 
I fear for her immediate future.
She was originally a tv journalist.
Guardian blog
not in the breaking news thread pkease.
That raises a factual question (maybe for another thread):
Are the fallen soldiers Russian ?
Or are they mostly other ethnic groups?
Ethnic groups which Putin doesn’t care about at all; people from the “stans”, the remote areas, who speak Russian only as a second language, who are often muslim ?
As I understand it, most of the ethnic Russian civilians living in Moscow and the other big cities have not been affected by the war at all…Their sons are not being drafted, and their jobs are secure. So they wholly support Putin in his patriotic war to defend Russia from the nazis in NATO.
And thus the war can continue for a long,long time, as long as Putin never drafts residents of Moscow into the canon fodder.
Inside story on the missile strike on the Novocherkassk.
There is a transcript available under the description.
Press more
But that took 12 years …
Good article that delves into the changing military situation and stalemate. The current loss of Western support.
Watching this war, I am stunned at the changes in support since 2022. The delay in giving Ukraine at least equality in Air Power has been critical. It directly contributed to the minefields and trenches that shut down the anticipated counter offensive. All the Western equipment like Bradley’s and Tanks were for naught when they got mired in muddy minefields.
The newest aide package is an encouraging beginning for 2024.
Undoubtedly, if the US had provided a significant number of M-1 tanks and Bradleys, and healthy dose of F-16s a year earlier, rather than giving the Russians many months to dig in and lay countless mines throughout occupied territory, the conflict would almost certainly have followed a very different trajectory. Then again, it’s easy to second guess these kinds of things in retrospect. Diplomatically, there were arguably compelling reasons why we slow-walked the introduction of more advanced weapons systems like we did.
It seems that important lessons from WWI were forgotten.
It’s my understanding that the Germans developed Blitzkrieg in response to the stalemate in WWI.
NATO forces today still try to get in fast, strike hard, and get out.
Although the Russians screwed that up at the beginning of the Ukrainian invasion. They came in hard and fast with Paratroopers but their infantry & armor units were undersupplied with fuel and ammo.
I can’t see a way for infantry to get through the current Ukrainian and Russian fortifications at the front.
Perhaps they can go over with air power? 
That’s a question that the best strategists in the Pentagon will need to figure out. Then the Ukrainians have to be trained and equipped to accomplish the mission.
They were going for a classic ‘decapitation’ style attack. If the paratroopers had succeeded (and they came close) in their mission as intended, the armor and infantry was pretty much intended to be an occupation force. What Russia should have done in the days that immediately followed the failed decapitation will be the subject of military studies for a generation to follow.
Moderating
Pretty far afield for breaking news now. No more on historic tank strategy and the like.
4-5 posts is definitely a hijack.
Back on topic.
One of Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s better thought out statements. Nice summation of 2023 aid and a thank you.
It must be retaliation for the lost Russian Ship.
The missile count is significantly higher than the 2nd largest attack in Nov 2022. It’s notable that the casualties are low. 18 still impacts a lot of families.
Live news link, it may be entirely different in a few hours
https://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-europe-67838996?src_origin=BBCS_BBC
Russia Blocked Deal to Give Ukraine New Weapons
During an interview last week with the Ukrainian website Economic Truth, Vladislav Belbas, director of Ukrainian Armored, claimed Moscow had sabotaged a deal in place with an unnamed country for an unspecified number of aircraft to be used in the war against Russia.
Speculation is that the unnamed country is Peru, and that the aircraft are MiG-29s. When one of the letters about the deal fell into Russian hands, Russia threatened to kill any projects they had in the country, and the country decided not to transfer the aircraft.
You say this all the time. It’s makes zero sense. Why do you think that anything is “retaliation” for a single act? That’s not how full blown war works.
The scale of the attack.
Even for Russia this is quite a lot of missile resources to expend in a single night.
The targets they choose serves no military purpose and its a failure at forcing the civilian population to demand peace.
It also failed to kill a lot of people. Presumably Russia had hoped for hundreds of dead instead of 18.