Interesting press reports on Putin indicating that he is willing to start peace talks with the west. Putin officially denied the claims, but the sourcing indicates it was definitely a trial balloon form inside Putin's inner circle. RU has the initiative on the battlefield as UA takes on a defensive posture to preserve resources. But RU is struggling to get a big win. RU has stopped trying to encircle Avdiivka after armored assaults got shredded by UA defenders. Now, they are going old school Bakhmut with meat waves and even an assault using the sewer system to get inside the city (ewww).
And while UA is on the defensive on the battlefield, UA has scored some big blows against RU's oil infrastructure. UA drones hit two large oil refineries, putting them out of commission for possibly months (or longer as RU has trouble obtaining parts for oil and gas facilities due to sanctions). RU is already facing a crisis with labor shortages which have sent wages up causing near double digit inflation. Interruptions in domestic gas supply and supplies to the armed forces could send prices up even higher while also putting pressure on Russia's budget.
This all may be why RU sent out a trial balloon on peace talks. Ukraine has been pushing to get China involved in its peace summit to be held in Switzerland. China would not meet with Ukrainian officials at Davos, seen as a snub. But China may not want the war to end for a while as it is dealing with an internal deflationary spiral. If sanctions against Russia are dropped or eased, China will lose an important captive market.
The Kremlin switched tactics from trying to outflank the city with armored, fast-moving tank assaults, to infiltrating infantry. In one place they used a sewage tunnel.
The Baltic Sea port of Ust-Luga was exporting crude oil and fuel on Tuesday apart from at Novatek's terminal which remained closed after being damaged by fire, according to data from LSEG and industry sources.
According to Reuters the oil refinery and terminal of Tuapse, Russia, which has been hit yesterday, has been put out of operation.
So, only 4 days after the strike against Ust-Luga, which kicked this facility out of action for the coming weeks or even months, the 2nd major oil… pic.twitter.com/Y33TzJSjnm
The United States is planning to station nuclear weapons in the UK for the first time in 15 years as the threat from Russia increases, Pentagon documents seen by The Telegraph reveal.
Did you mention Ukraine is losing the war it started?
All those brutal sanctions have crumbled Russia's production, forcing Russia to take more and more land. This happened all of 2023, when Ukraine has had full funding and full ammunition support. #Bahkmut And it continues today. #Avdiivka
What are your thoughts about Ukraine's funding being lowered by everyone, which will doom them?
Also, it was 65 POW's but your point remains. Ukraine are the big losers from their error. These POW swaps are well communicated by both sides and these flights (and POW swap protocols) happen regularly. 15 minutes seems like pretty short notice but it was given. It's Ukraine's responsibility to then act appropriately and not mass murder their own. We can't call this a Hannibal directive (a la Israel's practice of purposely killing their own who are captives) because for that to happen, more of the enemy needs to die than your own. This was just really stupid of Ukraine to make this error. It really harms future POW swaps too. It breaks the delicate, sacred trust for this unique truce during times of war.
Russian President Vladimir Putin pledged Friday to make public the findings of Moscow's investigation into the crash of a transport plane that he alleged Kyi...
Moscow accuses Kyiv of downing the Ilyushin Il-76 plane in Russia's Belgorod region, killing 74 people on board, including 65 captured Ukrainian soldiers en route to be swapped for Russian PoWs.
In Ukraine, a group of Russians is training to go into battle against their fellow citizens. The new unit, which is officially part of Ukraine's armed forces...
We need to talk about Ukraine. While the world’s attention has been focused on the war between Israel and Hamas, grim tremors have been shaking that rich, black soil. Ukraine’s counteroffensive has failed – or, in Volodymyr Z...
The Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine are areas of Ukraine that are currently controlled by Russia in the course of the Russo-Ukrainian War. In Ukrainian law, they are defined as the "temporarily occupied territories of...
Everyone is confirming Russia's winning. Just to keep what it has, Ukraine has to dig in and hope Russia doesn't keep taking more... and more... and more.
This war has been over for Ukraine since it started. They will not get what they want. Everyone is watching to see how much more Russia takes before the deal.
~ Russian maintains several advantages over Ukraine, including manpower and material, experts say.
~ To keep Moscow's forces at bay, Kyiv will need to dig in and strengthen its defenses, they said.
Also, it was 65 POW's but your point remains. Ukraine are the big losers from their error. These POW swaps are well communicated by both sides and these flights (and POW swap protocols) happen regularly. 15 minutes seems like pretty short notice but it was given. It's Ukraine's responsibility to then act appropriately and not mass murder their own. We can't call this a Hannibal directive (a la Israel's practice of purposely killing their own who are captives) because for that to happen, more of the enemy needs to die than your own. This was just really stupid of Ukraine to make this error. It really harms future POW swaps too. It breaks the delicate, sacred trust for this unique truce during times of war.
Kiev: There were no Ukraine pow's on the flight so it was a legitimate target.
Dead Ukrainian pow's on the flight:
More footage from the site of the plane crash. Bodies of #Ukranian soldiers are being recovered together with some documents The launch point of the missile that hit the #IL76 aircraft in the #Belgorod region has been identified, the village of Liptsy, Kharkov region.#Ukrainepic.twitter.com/WW4EhEwCAb
Newsweek reporting on electric power infrastructure problems in Russia.
"There have been estimates that perhaps thousands of Russian civilians have frozen to death," Smart said. "Incredibly, the genesis of this crisis, as a UK [Ministry of Defense (MoD)] report said today, is that the Kremlin has been pushing regional governors in Russia to make infrastructure cuts, since early 2022, to help finance the war in Ukraine."
"This is another sign that Russia is becoming increasingly unstable and nearing the breaking point," he added. Outages had left approximately 25 percent of Moscow residents without heat in brutal winter weather as of earlier this month, while a 60-year-old Russian Navy officer reportedly froze to death in his home near St. Petersburg after losing power on January 3.
"In recent months, there have been heating breakdowns in 16 locations across Russia," the update reads. "These breakdowns amidst sub-freezing temperatures are an expansion of an existing problem that has plagued Russian cities and towns for decades, but has likely become more acute due to Russian wartime policies"
Link to an interview with Time correspondent and author Simon Shuster about his new biography "The Showman" documenting Volodymyr Zelenskyy's journey from producer to rise in politics and presidency through the early part of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Time correspondent Simon Shuster says Zelenskyy is "almost unrecognizable" from the happy-go-lucky, optimistic comedian he first met in 2019. Shuster's new book is The Showman.
US President Joe Biden’s administration is putting together a new aid strategy for Ukraine, which focuses on helping Ukraine fend off new Russian advances, rather than winning back Russian-occupied territory; the strategy als...
The announcement of mass procurement fraud, confirmed by Ukraine's Defence Ministry, will have a huge resonance in a country beleaguered by Russia's nearly two-year-old invasion. The fight to root out endemic corruption remai...
More girls dying for Ukraine. It’s also time for Americans to die for Ukraine. America’s neighbor Russia will invade America next if American troops don’t fight Russia directly half way around the world.
How to say "I've never read this article I'm linking to" without saying it.
It's an excellent article, go read it.
Elected legislators don’t get that many opportunities to make a real mark on the world. But right now, the actions of just a few congressional Republicans could help stop a series of bad decisions from morphing into a worse one. This is their chance to make America serious again. Do they have the courage to take it?
Also be sure to read the articles by Ilia Ponomarenko and Yaroslav Trofimov that you keep linking to without reading. Great journalists.
This video describes the military situation in Ukraine on the 28th of January 2024THE MAP: https://dev.militarysummary.comStore: https://www.militarysummary....
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