The Ukraine war thread
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@Wim said in The Ukraine war thread:
@Aqua-Letifer You're a little bit wrong. Depending on what Russia will/won't achieve, China will adapt its strategies to what the USA will/won't do.
Starting to wonder about China. The Belt and Road looks like it needs suspenders...
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Bakhmut has fallen to the Russians.
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The Russians are getting better.
OTOH, Ukranian pilots shocked the USAF recently. After rolling them through a brief F-16 simulator training, the Air Force thinks they can have the Ukrainians flight tested in the F-16 and combat ready in 120 days.
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@George-K said in The Ukraine war thread:
Bakhmut has fallen to the Russians.
It was by all accounts a Pyrrhic victory.
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Yes, but what it does give them, is a victory, of which they have had very few of late.
It also puts the Russians into artillery range of two larger, more industrialized cities.
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Prigozhin and the Kremlin can say what they want and, as the saying in Russian goes, try to make candy out of a turd.
My hunch is that Bakhmut has not fallen to the Russians. Instead the Russians in Bakhmut have been surrounded on all sides by advancing Ukrainian forces.
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Here's where Ukraine is aiming the offensive. Makes perfect sense. All are longer supply lines for the Russians.
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"Incursions" into Bolgorad.
Interesting. Looks like Russian territory is under attack.
Russian forces are still fighting for control of parts of the border region of Belgorod, the region’s governor said Tuesday, warning residents of a handful of border villages not to return to their houses the day after authorities there blamed Ukraine for the war’s largest incursion into Russian territory.
Belgorod Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov warned residents not to panic, after some border areas had been evacuated the previous day, but said Russia’s military was still concluding what President Vladimir Putin labeled an antiterrorist operation to push the combatants out of Russia. Early on Tuesday afternoon, Russia’s Defense Ministry said forces had encircled the fighters and destroyed the group without giving more details. The ministry said it killed 70 people in the operation. The information couldn’t be independently confirmed.
“The cleanup operation by the defense ministry and security structures is continuing,” Gladkov said in a video on his Telegram channel. “Right now it’s not worth returning to your houses.”
Ukraine’s military intelligence directorate, known as HUR, identified the troops as two volunteer groups of Russian citizens who work closely with HUR and said the incident was a consequence of the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine.
The governor of Russia’s Belgorod region said Tuesday that Russian forces were still fighting for control of parts of the region amid an incursion by Ukrainian-backed troops. Photo: Russian Defense Ministry/Reuters
Russian military correspondents said battles were continuing well into the afternoon on Tuesday, with Russian forces trying to stop two units of combatant reinforcements from joining up with the groups inside Russia.The Russian Defense Ministry said it had launched attacks against the combatants using artillery and air power. Defense Ministry spokesman Gen. Igor Konashenkov said the groups had been encircled and at least 70 members had been killed.
The extent of the original incursion and the affiliations of the combatants couldn’t be confirmed independently but the incident has exposed embarrassing weaknesses around Russia’s border areas as Moscow’s troops prepare for an expected Ukrainian offensive.
As one blogger comments, "... the incursion looked like a propaganda stunt — and in some ways, is sure is. But it’s also turned into an aggravating game of Whack-a-Mole for Moscow."
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@Renauda said in The Ukraine war thread:
Interesting article. Basically re-iterates what the blogger said - this will divert Russian troops to a defensive posture, further impairing their effectiveness elsewhere. "Whack-a-Mole," indeed.
Also, I don't think one should forget about the psychological impact of an attack on Russian soil - and not just by haphazard drone attacks.
ETA: Also, looking at a map, it appears that Bolgorad is only about 20 km from the Ukraine border. Makes it a nice, easy-to-reach target.