‘cry havoc, and let slip the dogs of war’
4 Likes
Which makes me wonder why the Chinese have been so strident in the South China Sea of late. They also had war games with Russia in the Pacific late last year followed by maneuvers in the Taiwan Straight.
We have to remember that China already said that invading a sovereign country is not in their interest. Undoubtedly in their minds, invading Taiwan is not the same. It belongs to them.
17 Likes
A trend that has developed in news coverage of the Russian war in Ukraine is that missile attacks on civilian or undefended areas get more coverage than the grind of the ground war.
The missile attack on the base in western UKR is certainly provocative, but the coverage has been outsized and the messaging is inaccurate. As Jake Sullivan said, that attack was about Putin expressing frustration that NATO’s supplies to UKR have made this more of a fair fight. The NLAW and Javelin anti-tank weaponry have devastated the RU military. The bodies and lost equipment are piling up. That’s undeniable and yet that’s not the story. That attack, even though it claimed casualties, is not going to stop the West from supplying UKR. In fact, the West is going to double and triple down and let Vlad cope and seethe.
From what I can piece together from various reports, I notice the following:
-
There are a lot more images of seized or destroyed RU tanks and vehicles in Irpin, NW of Kyiv. The Russians used to control that area. The fact that we’re seeing such images may be confirmation that the Russians have been pushed further back from Kyiv. CNN appeared to confirm that in passing (but of course, they live for tv coverage of embattled Kyiv expecting an imminent RU invasion so the balance of coverage doesn’t give the right impression of recent UKR successes).
-
The Russians’ grip in the South is cracking a bit. They evacuated Skavodsk (Southern tip of UKR) and may have lost their ability to continue their siege of Mariupol. However, the Russians know how to distract with heavy use of artillery and missiles to continue to pound the city of Mariupol. They’re also installing fake mayors in towns they control but public protests are out in the faces of the Russian soldiers telling them to leave while they’re still alive.
-
Belarus has become a big morgue for Russian soldiers. Putin has thus far failed to get Belarus fully on board as a staging ground for a ground invasion.
-
All that said, the Ukrainians keep saying that Russia is preparing for another assault, backed with many thousands of foreign mercenaries. They may just throw everything and the kitchen sink to see if something breaks through and leave a trail of destruction in its wake. The Russians may be willing to sacrifice thousands of soldiers to take ground by physical force, even if it means a street war where armor can’t; serve them well. I feel like the superior weaponry on the ground for UKR (while the Russians clearly have the advantage on missiles, UKR’s anti-tank weaponry > Russian tanks/APCs) should give UKR the advantage. However, I’d feel more comfortable if Ukrainians had a lot more guns b/c I believe these mercenaries are going to go after villages and kill less armed civilians to make their point.
So while I think UKR made some serious gains over the past week, the worst is still out there and UKR will have to adapt.
There’s more talk about a settlement, but Putin still seems obsessed with owning UKR and bombing it into submission even if his military has been severely exposed and weakened. I wouldn’t trust anything the Russians say.
50 Likes
So by “air strikes” does this mean Russian aircraft or missiles?
7 Likes
Post/Times often seem to blur aerial bombing with shelling by artillery, or ground-launched rockets. A no-fly zone won’t help with the latter, which appears increasingly to be the psychopathic specialty of the Russian military. It feels a bit redundant to call the tactics of an aggressive totally unjustified invasion force psychopathic, but it seems called-for here.
15 Likes
Dark humor
12 Likes
There’s no military objective. The goal is to make civilians suffer and die until they give up.
37 Likes
They won’t though.
20 Likes
I have read, someplace, that there are so many missiles that it is not safe for aircraft.
4 Likes
The Task Force Gator, from Florida National Guard’s 53rd Infantry Brigade Combat Team, was conducting a training mission, and deployed to Ukraine last November, very close to this area. They were pulled out mid-February, just before the Pootie Invasion. Now safe and doing their thing at Grafenwoehr, Bavaria.
6 Likes
In the West Ham v. Ashton Villa game being shown on USA, the Ukrainian player Yarmolenko scored a goal for West Ham. I’m not crying, you’re crying.
10 Likes
Some encouraging news.
31 Likes
Russia needs China, but China definitely does not need Russia.
33 Likes
Slava Ukraini. 
22 Likes
This is one of those times I really wish we had another reaction option than “like”.
25 Likes
17 Likes
Gee, what a surprise it would be to learn that ol‘ Tulsi is working for Pootie.
Not.
38 Likes
Agreed, but I think we’re all on the same page about the different things that little 
means. If it’s bad news, it just means, “I appreciate the info”
11 Likes