In Ukraine’s valleys of death, a lethal game of hide and seek is playing out (telegraph.co.uk)
“The howitzers in the trees fired twice in quick succession, then their crews dismounted, scrambled around, replaced dislodged camouflage, and reloaded.
Artillery, rocket launchers and mortars are more likely to decide the outcome of the war in Ukraine than any other weapon system.
In eastern Donbas, massive Russian barrages are pounding a path for the infantry and tanks as they try to surround the city of Severodonetsk – with ghastly consequences for anyone caught in the way.
Ukrainian guns and rockets are firing back, trying to counter river crossings and kill enough of the enemy to disrupt the advance. They, too, have inflicted horrendous casualties.”
Comment: Well, pilgrims, we will see if this massive indirect fire weapons duel results in conditions that favor a Ukrainian counter-offensive. If that does not occur, then Kissinger’s prescription will become imperative. pl
I watched a segment of a mother burying her child. The little girl was making pancakes outside. Got hit with shrapnel from a shell. If the legacy media would cover stories like this maybe this ends but they won’t. There is no “Voice of America” like a Walter Cronkite anymore. We have a legion of voices and politicians who are just getting started.
Good point. Maybe we can take an example from this news segment on the Texas school shooting:
https://youtu.be/ezuzocKVk5Q
The “Greatest Failure in Modern American Law Enforcement History.”
8, 9, 10 year old children being shot to pieces en masse while the assorted uniformed bozos dawdle, wait and check their pbones for messages? A person might begin to become suspicious of something being rotten in the state of Utopia.
Fourth and Long,
If LE across the US doesn’t start screaming for the immediate firing/resignation of those incompetent cowards and their bosses, then something is truly wrong with our entire LE culture.
“If LE across the US …”
While I agree with the sentiment to fire the lot we need to go further and fire the school board, the city leadership, and the host of the left that spent all the years from Ferguson to now shouting ACAB! and Defund the Police.
“…then something is truly wrong with our entire LE culture.”
I am sure they are up on their LGBTQ training and we dare not mention the tranz or what pharmacueticals the assailant may have been on. Nor should we mention that yet again “Gun Free Zone” only means you are helpless in the face of evil. Shooting back works. Arm the teachers and staff.
Fred,
This was small town Texas, not California, not even Austin, Texas. You can’t get more gun friendly than that. It certainly wasn’t a gun free zone. There were 19 heavily armed LEOs out there standing around with their thumbs up their ass worried more about getting home safely than protecting the children of the community. This is professional incompetence, maybe flat negligence, and a real reason for people to shout ACAB.
TTG,
“It certainly wasn’t a gun free zone. ”
Please stop lying. If you want to say guns were allowed at that elementry school please feel free to provide a link to that. Nobody in the school had a gun but the criminal. The cops showed up later.
TTG,
Very likely the delay cost the lives of several children who were left to bleed out.
After Columbine, the law enforcement recommendations were to “go in and confront” the shooter, not even waiting for a “swat team”.
The “excuse” now is that they had to get a door key to the school room, causing the delay. Well, I would think that classroom windows could have been used to take out the shooter and enter thru.
Fred,
You are so full of BS, that has no bearing at all on this horror. Get real!
Al,
Thank you for the personal insult. Please explain why you think that the teachers and staff having no means of self defense has no bearing at all on this horror as TTG and I are otherwise in full agreement that the cops are cowards who should have stormed into that building to save lives rather than ‘stand down’.
If LE across the US doesn’t start screaming for the immediate firing/resignation of those incompetent cowards and their bosses, then something is truly wrong with our entire LE culture.
I hope it is only incompetence and cowardice. I can imagine a more sinister explanation. Perhaps the cops stayed outside because some shadowy puppet-master had told them to stay outside. Perhaps some sinister conspiracy has infiltrated law enforcement. Perhaps the entire shooting was engineered by agents provocateur. Who would benefit from such a monstrously criminal conspiracy? It would have to be someone who would be happy to see the American people divided. It would probably be someone wealthy, hoping to disarm the middle class. If this blog would consider speculations regarding such conspiracies, I would be interested to read the opinions of our host and my fellow commenters.
longarch,
The shadowy puppet-master was the town’s chief of police. He made a decision this was a barricade situation rather than an active shooter situation and the tragedy was compounded. That none of the LEOs on scene challenged that is even more damning. There was no conspiracy.
That none of the LEOs on scene challenged that is even more damning.
Good response TTG. Pat’s reference to the points at which a soldier has to dissent, deny to follow orders was something I found fascinating many many years ago. In the earliest SST times?
Wondering what you feel about the orchestration of this public collective shaming action of Paul Robinson in Canada. Deserved? Following Eugene Czolij’s ‘liberal’ verdict? This question is triggered by Thomas Bergbusch’s comment:
https://irrussianality.wordpress.com/2022/05/16/evidence-to-parliament/#comment-47033
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugene_Czolij#Awards
Nothing effective is likely to happen… it’s like popular uprisings during war. As bad as it is, sector-elite’s children are not being massacred and not enough children are being massacred – yet. I think that number needs to be at least 50-100 month rate before the entrenched interests supporting the status quo are overcome by popular will. Mother’s of massacred children immolating themselves on state-house steps might help too. Even in our present culture, these achievements might trigger (pardon pun) a reevaluation of the purity of recent interpretations of the sacredness of the 2ndA (hmmm… turns out “no Right is without well-regulated exceptions”) and unbearable (almost like grief) financial burdens on the production & sale of a class of weapons (like those tracing their lineage to US gov contracts for combat weapons, or some other clever filters). It will also take time… at least 10 years to a generation or more to modify our population’s fetishization of guns & decrease leakage of old illegal weapons to young demented killers. Then, folks can go back to hunting, target shooting & maybe even teaching & learning. But I’m not sure a 100/month child-massacre rate would be adequate – though I fear we may find out.
Unfortunately Kissinger’s prescription is probably 2 months to late, It is now about what terms the Russians will accept, which is another way of saying “impose”. So denazification, demilitarisation and neutrality for rump-Ukraine. I can´t see that happening with the current regime in Kiev. So I expect a military coup.
Zelenskyy must be thinking about his own skin right now. There will be a lot of Ukrainians who will want more than a pound of flesh from him considering this debacle. Quiet a few outside my be inclined to let him hang to hide their own roles. I wouldn´t be surprised if everyone in power were satisfied with him going the way of Qadaffi.
“To be an enemy of America can be dangerous, but to be a friend is fatal” Henry Kissinger
Could this be the reason the Russians are speeding things up?
https://awfulavalanche.wordpress.com/2022/05/27/ukraine-war-day-93-water-crisis-in-the-donbass/
Kissinger’s prescription will be a death knell for Ukraine. If they cede occupied territory to Putin now, it is just a matter of time until he takes a bigger bite. Ukrainians know that. Kissinger, who fled Nazis in Germany as a teenager, should know that also.
We should know better than to follow Kissinger’s advice. His deal at the Paris Peace Talks 50 years ago turned out to be a complete failure when the North Viets broke their promises and launched a major combined-arms conventional invasion.
Putin will do the same eventually. Give an inch and they’ll take a yard as grampa used to say.
Leith,
Your attitude of “we should never cede anything to anybody, ever” mentality might work in a world devoid of nuclear weapons. In the world in which we live it is eventually going to end very badly.
You are not even clear about what you think Putin is going to go for. Germany? France? Putin is well bloodied and there is no way he is going to go for anything West of the Dnieper.
The problem with the human race is that we have the brains of chimpanzees and the weapons of gods.
James –
Putin is already west of the Dnieper. He is occupying Kherson and the majority of that oblast west of the river running from Velyka Oleksandrivka in the north to Stanislav further SW near the Bug River estuary. He tried to take Mykolyav further west of the Dnieper in late February/early March before the UA chased him out. Some better minds than me surmise he was trying to take Odessa, link up with breakaway Transnistria, and turn Ukraine into a landlocked country. In March he also tried to take Kryvyi Rih further NW of the Dnieper. Kryvyi Rih district is a major industrial center that produces 10% of Ukraine’s GDP and it is the gateway to central Ukraine.
Why do you bring up Germany and France ? They are in NATO. Putin is an ass but I doubt he is suicidal.
Why are you attributing a statement to me in quotation marks that I never made, and don’t believe in? I would say that to compromise or cede certain conditions in honest negotiations is a win-win for all. Emphasis on honest. If I were in the Ukraine parliament I’d vote to cede Crimea. That would be a sour deal for the Tatars and for the Ukrainian Navy. But I have no clue why Khruschev gifted Crimea to Ukraine in the first place. I’d even agree to cede water rights from the Dnieper to Crimea if Putin bore the expense.
Leith –
I apologize. I was unfair to you and you were a class act in how you called me out on it and I take my hat off to you.
No apology necessary James. I’ve been bad-mouthed much worse. But if this is where we hug, I’ll pass. SWMBO wouldn’t like it.
PS – Speaking of Kherson. Some OSINT twitter accounts are saying Ukraine is now on the offensive against Russian forces in or near Kherson on the west bank. Perhaps those Polish T-72s are being put to use? But we’ll have to wait a while to see if this a full scale offensive, or a reconnaissance in force, or a feint to relieve pressure on the Donbas.
But if this is where we hug, I’ll pass. SWMBO wouldn’t like it.
I can understand, somewhat. Maybe since I wish I would understand better where you are coming from? Cheap shot concerning misquote?
Irony Alert/Cynicism Alert: [where are you coming from???] Other then being proud American, which compared to the last two decades, enjoys seeing America proudly standing on the right side of history, once again.On the way to a 1989 /Glasnost remake with “the West” once again winning the competition?
*******
Kissinger’s prescription will be a death knell for Ukraine. If they cede occupied territory to Putin now, it is just a matter of time until he takes a bigger bite. Ukrainians know that. Kissinger, who fled Nazis in Germany as a teenager, should know that also.
Is it not only–compared to Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria–an illegal war, but is Russia also committing genocide in the Ukraine?
Leander –
Was just trying to inject a little levity, and not taking cheap shots.
To answer your last question: Putin is definitely committing genocide in the Ukraine.
Was just trying to inject a little levity, and not taking cheap shots.
The gravity of levity? As this Freudian slip G.W.Bush?
Al Jazeera, Belen Fernandez, May 22, 2022:
In a recent speech at his very own George W Bush Presidential Centre in Dallas, Texas, Bush condemned the “absence of checks and balances” in Vladimir Putin’s Russia, which had enabled “one man to launch a wholly unjustified and brutal invasion of Iraq”.
…Granted, the linguistically challenged ex-head of state has long made people chuckle with his so-called “Bushisms”, which have over the years included the following peculiar utterances …
But the effective annihilation of a nation is hardly a laughing matter. Ditto for the reduction to a split-second “Iraq, too, anyway” of hundreds of thousands of deaths, countless massacres of Iraqi civilians, the forcible displacement of millions of people, and the saturation of the country with toxic and radioactive munitions that continue to cause congenital birth defects, cancer, and all manner of other maladies nearly two decades after the launch of the “wholly unjustified and brutal invasion”….
Of course, this is not the first time Bush has unintentionally said something deeply revealing about his own belligerence. There was that time in 2006, for example, when he remarked in an interview with CBS Evening News: “You know, one of the hardest parts of my job is to connect Iraq to the war on terror”.
Nor, it so happens, is it the first time that he has joked about the whole premise of the Iraq war. Back in 2004, during the annual cringe-fest known as the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, Bush narrated a slide show featuring a picture of him looking under furniture in the Oval Office: “Those weapons of mass destruction have got to be here somewhere”, he quipped to applause and laughter.
****
How dare Putin assume he can act as the US President and assume he can do whatever he likes? Never mind the consequences?
******
Putin is definitely committing genocide in the Ukraine.
Provocative, or supporting one or the other double genocide variant?
Inasmuch as persistance of “Judeo-Bolshevik” stereotypes distracts from appreciating the gravity of the Holocaust, academically rigorous study that would demythologize the role of Jews in the demise and sovietization of independent Lithuania would seem essential if only as credible counterpoint to the so-called theory of two genocides. This theory, which has gained traction among academics and the general public, posits that the collaboration of the Lithuanian rabble in the Nazi murder of the Jews was a regrettable but understandable response to the “genocide” perpetrated by the Jewish collaborators during the first soviet occupation.
Conflicting memories, Saulius Sužiedėlis, Šarūnas Liekis, in Himka/Michlic
https://yivo.org/cimages/liekis_suziedelis_coflicting_memories_2013.pdf
Leith,
A fascinating glimpse into Henry can be found in Zumwalt’s memoir, “On Watch”
Zumwalt utterly despised the man, he found Henry’s unethical methods unforgivable, and believed Henry to be infected with defeatism on the matter of the USSR.
However, Zumwalt’s opinion was those same traits were important in Henry’s secret assumption of the powers of the President during the Yom Kipper war crisis. Fooling the world that Nixon, drowning his Watergate sorrows in Florida, was still in charge had been in Zumwalt’s opinion key. Key to the degree that it may well have saved the world.
We ignore wise rogues at our peril.
d and c –
Thanks for that ref. I’ll see if my local library has a copy. As I recall many in the Naval service thought that Zumwalt was a bit of a “wise rogue”.
Although I read somewhere, O’Ballance or Boyne can’t recall, that Israel’s nuke option during the 73 war was a bluff. Not just to dupe Sadat, it was also intended to bring the US into the conflict. And that Kissinger might have been the bull on the Security Council. But it was Tricky Dickie himself that ordered the 200 tanks and 150 aircraft to be airlifted to Golda Meir. She needed them after the shellacking the IDF took.
Lieth,
Zumwalt was not afraid of a fight so he pissed a lot of people off, god bless him.
A lot of that book can be skipped over, the time of his terms on the Joint Chiefs is all in the later chapters, but don’t skip the first. It’s a hilarious account of accepting control of a Japanese base after the surrender.
It was the Soviets that concerned him during that crisis. I think what makes his depiction of the situation compelling is how convinced this ornery old sea dog was that the Soviets weren’t bluffing.
d and c –
Local library does not have it. Neither does my local bookstore. But I was able to order up a copy of Larry Berman’s biography of Admiral Elmo. Hopefully he has included the incident Zumwalt accepting control of the IJN Japanese base you mentioned.
“The Russian Army is like a brick wall rotten at the base. When it starts to fall it will fall apart quickly”
14 very long days…Care to reassess ?
After carefully watching Zelensky’s video appearances, it looks like he has some kind of drug problem. His position is fragile because he does not seem free in decision making. Earlier, he had to balance with the ,,right sector” (after Mariupol a little less), now there is the big influence of foreign partners. E.g. the debacle at Snake island was a result of British insistence for the operation.
The sad part is that he had the chance to try and prevent the conflict.
Jovan P,
You’re really grasping at straws. Zelenskiy’s use of media has been masterful since before the invasion started. His speeches are effective in rallying his countrymen and his handling of Western leaders is an equally effective mixture of praise and admonishment. Putin was once just as masterful. How the mighty have fallen.
TTG,
Z is being scripted by PR firms in London and NY. Last time he tried to negotiate Boris came a knocking and told him to press on – according to a Z aide.
And then there’s the hard place: repeated threats to his life from the right. When he has no choice but to come to terms Moscow may well be the safest place in the world for him
Steve,
Zelenskiy is doing his own scripting along with his own people. He’s made a living in media and doesn’t need help from outside PR firms. Russian commandos made two attempts to breach the building he and his family were in on the first night of the invasion. And you think Moscow is a safe place for him?
TTG,
I’ve seen the list of UK firms and their messaging PowerPoints. They were on a leaked google doc that’s since been password protected.
Zelensky is a professional actor. He has stashed untold millions offshore.
LOL
Z’s “popularity” in Ukraine had collapsed to around 25% from 75% when he was elected because he revealed himself as the opposite of what he ran on(surprised?). He’s doing a Joe Biden.
People can be very gullible.
“To put it plainly: Zelensky has exhausted the patience of the Ukrainians. His media smokescreens have not been enough to hide the fact that he has not kept his main campaign promise (to end the war in the Donbass), that the economic situation in the country is getting worse and worse, and that the management of the coronavirus epidemic in Ukraine has been catastrophic (there have been records of new cases every day during the past week).”
https://www.donbass-insider.com/2020/06/30/ukraine-zelenskys-approval-rating-collapses/
southpoint,
That article and the poll was from June 2020. A lot has happened since then.
I see it was updated in Feb 2022 before the invasion. Don’t know what was updated other than noting the Russian Army was massing on the border. A lot has happened even since that update.
Zelensky does not seem to be free in his decision making. Putin was certainly aware of the global geopolitical and monetary issues at stake in this proxy war. This disturbing article has a quick summary of some motivations, players, war crimes and sanctions.
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/international-news/ukraine/soros-promoting-world-war-iii-lets-go/
Jovan P
Prevention or resolution of conflict is not important for UK politicians.
Division of Europe has been UK’s long standing policy. Ukraine is just another tool to be used.
Apparently, BoJo wants to create an alternative European block 🙂
https://www.lrt.lt/en/news-in-english/19/1704219/johnson-proposes-alternative-union-with-ukraine-may-include-baltic-states-media
https://www.aa.com.tr/en/europe/uk-wants-to-include-ukraine-in-european-commonwealth-report/2599081
I like that photo. I remember a Willy and Joe cartoon where a cannon cocker put his raincoat over his gun saying I don’t have to dry myself with an oily rag. We did the same thing with our mortar tubes during monsoon season in the Philippines.
Seems like it is settling into a war of attrition, no different essentially, fom the trench warfare of WW1, Verdun and the Somme, or the madness of the Iran iraq war. Can either side “win”? What would “victory” look like? There eventually has to be a settlement of some sort- but it is surely essential that Russia emerge from this conflict unrewarded for its morally unjustifiable and truly evil aggressions. If Russia is allowed to keep the territory it has won so far, this would be rewarding that country for its occupation of the territory of another country, encouraging it towads further aggressions perhaps against the Baltic states and even Finland, and restoring its sanctions crippled economy. What message would be sent to China, looking over towards Taiwan, and what message to the younger generation of Russians, liberal, progressive, rejecting the narrow fascistic nationalism of Putin and his gang? Let Russia keep the Crimea, already annexed near ten years ago, but they must withdraw from the Donbas and Black Sea coastal regions. Only then, surely, can sanctions be lifted and only then can the attrition of Russian milirary power be ended and the flow of body bags be ended.
Russia’s Shrinking War
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/05/24/world/europe/russia-shrinking-war-ukraine.html?campaign_id=29&emc=edit_up_20220527&instance_id=62525&nl=the-upshot®i_id=87967048&segment_id=93514&te=1&user_id=4ae95cece46074f892c425dc4f28903a
Maps within this article are very well developed.
Following from the article:
Interesting maps in this article showing the shrinking territory occupied by Russian forces over past 3 months. Where Russian forces are now concentrated.
Again and again, Russia’s military has had to accept the difficult reality that it doesn’t have the force necessary to fight in too many places at once.
The area with the most critical battles is only 75 miles wide and includes three key cities: Sloviansk, Kramatorsk and Sievierodonetsk. The Kremlin is targeting five routes to Sloviansk that would allow it to encircle tens of thousands of Ukrainian troops. It has moved closer in places, but it still hasn’t broken through.
An enormous Russian force has gathered in Izium and regularly sends units down the main highway to Sloviansk. Artillery shells frontline villages, tanks batter Ukrainian defenses and attack helicopters fly overhead.
Both sides have taken heavy casualties, but Russia has failed to overwhelm the Ukrainian fighters, who have held their positions for weeks. In an attempt to cut off Ukrainian supply lines, Russian soldiers have also targeted the main road and rail line connecting Sloviansk to the rest of Ukraine. But this advance has stalled too. Each failed attempt takes a toll on Russia’s already depleted military as soldiers are injured or killed, and units become smaller and less effective.
Another advance has made more progress, taking some villages and farmland north of the town of Lyman, which is now under direct attack.
Russia’s playbook to capture towns and villages with limited manpower is brutal — destroy urban areas with heavy artillery and rocket fire, and then move in a few days later. This strategy suits the depleted Russian army, which does not have the troops required for sustained urban warfare.
As advances north of Sloviansk have slowed or stalled, Russia has started fighting for an even smaller area, the city of Sievierodonetsk. As the easternmost city still under Ukrainian control, Sievierodonetsk is exposed to Russian artillery on multiple sides. Shelling has destroyed vast areas of the city and civilians are left with no electricity or running water. Ukrainian officials expect a siege similar to what Mariupol experienced. Ukrainian troops will likely hold onto Sievierodonetsk as long as they can, while inflicting as many losses on Russia’s military as possible.
Russia’s military has gained ground elsewhere in the Donbas. It has finally taken over Mariupol after negotiating the surrender of the last significant pocket of Ukrainian fighters in the Azovstal steel plant.
It also forced Ukrainian forces to withdraw from Popasna after relentless shelling and missile strikes left no buildings for them to defend the city from. In a threatening advance, Russia is now moving north from Popasna to try to encircle troops in Sievierodonetsk and prevent supplies getting in from the west.
But these victories aren’t enough for Russia to gain control of the Donbas, and its problems may only worsen as the war drags on.
Russian forces are inflicting immense losses on the Ukrainian military, but they are coming at a cost to Russia’s own supply of troops and equipment. At the same time, Ukraine continues to receive weapons from NATO countries that will better equip it for launching counterattacks.
Ukraine also has a more reliable supply of fighters than Russia does. President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia has been reluctant to order a national draft, and so Moscow is fighting at near peacetime staffing levels.
Without enlisting more troops, there is only so long that Russia can continue to push forward. The farther that Russian troops push, the longer their supply lines become and the more exposed they are to Ukrainian counterattacks, so Russia has to reposition troops to defend territory it has already won.
Russia has a limited window to reestablish momentum and make significant advances. After that, it may be forced into more defensive positions, and the war could drift into a stalemate. With troops and equipment dwindling, the battle for the Donbas is likely to be the last major offensive of the war.
Are you sure Ukraine has a more reliable source of soldiers?
If there is substance to this Washington Post article things may not be well for the soldiers at the front. They may becoming close to a breaking point.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/05/26/ukraine-frontline-russia-military-severodonetsk/
Qoute:
” Ukraine, like Russia, has provided scant information about deaths, injuries or losses of military equipment. But after three months of war, this company of 120 men is down to 54 because of deaths, injuries and desertions.”
“Ukraine also has a more reliable supply of fighters than Russia does. ” Now that Russia is having to trash the Donbas to give the appearance of winning, do you think that the populace in Donbas still thinks favorably of the Russians?
Al,
Russia had never had enough infantry. Their default plan is always to level a city first. They went against doctrine in their Kiev campaign.
Jimmy.kiev was a feint.the real target was mariupul.Russian strength and local population support is in the south east.
mc –
Kiev was a feint? I guess Chernihiv was a feint also. Sumy too. And Mykolyav. Plus Kharkiv.
That’s a lot of strategery by Putin. Fainting strategery! Maybe he should rewrite Clauswitz?
From Defense One blog:
The U.S. will keep sending weapons to Ukraine through the end of the calendar year, State Department Counselor Derek Chollet told Defense One Executive Editor Kevin Baron in an interview Thursday that you can hear on our Defense One Radio podcast. “In terms of the resources we’re providing Ukraine that Congress passed, the president signed this $40 billion package of assistance—about $20 billion of that is going to be insecurity assistance for the Ukrainians,” Chollet said. “And that will give us now a runway of at least till the end of the year, I would think in terms of resources to provide the Ukrainians; and now we’re of course providing them evermore sophisticated systems. And so we do expect that their capabilities are going to only increase.
“And at the same time, the Russian military attriting quite rapidly,” he said. “I mean, they are burning through a lot of their capability. They’re having a hard time restocking some of that capability. So our sense is that over time, the Ukrainian military is going to continue to get stronger; but the fight is going to remain quite tough.”
A1,
I take it you believe Russia’s goal was to take the whole country and fight a guerrilla war for eternity. Even if they hadn’t thought that out themselves all they had to do was read the daily papers on Iraq and Afghanistan for 20 years.
Maybe save the 50 billion to replace Ukraine’s infrastructure.
Mike,
“Let Russia keep the Crimea, already annexed near ten years ago, but they must withdraw from the Donbas and Black Sea coastal regions. Only then, surely, can sanctions be lifted and only then can the attrition of Russian milirary power be ended and the flow of body bags be ended.”
Apart from the fact that the Ukrainians are being chewed to pieces right now what makes you think Ukraine still has any negotiating leverage. They’ve lost it. In addition to that if Russia has taken the punishment the west says it has, wouldn’t that tempt the neocons to promote going in and finishing the job?
Then there’s the complete disincentive for Russia to not finish the job, which would make them look like prey to NATO. No, of there’s a negotiation now to end this it will be over whether Ukraine can keep Odessa.
Just think, only a few weeks ago Z could have saved his people from all the death and destruction by ignoring the friends and enemies whispering in his ear.
A few days ago I posted French MoD maps of April 21 and May 25. Unfortunately the server is down – or the maps have been taken down – that clearly show the ground taken by the Russians in the east. Add to that the reports of the demoralization of the men at the front and I’d say that war is pretty much over.
Is there a way you can imagine a viable realization of your hopes for how this will end?
The site is now back up. Here are the maps:
https://www.defense.gouv.fr/sites/default/files/ministere-armees/Situation%20en%20Ukraine%20le%2021%20avril.pdf
https://www.defense.gouv.fr/sites/default/files/ministere-armees/Situation%20en%20Ukraine%20le%2025%20mai.pdf
The powers that arranged this war were well situated on all sides. The forces that have come to be in this war are not of their making. They are scared and want it all to stop. Davos men and women are weak. Warriors are not, and this is becoming a war made by warriors.
Siegfried Loraine Sassoon, CBE, MC was an eminent English poet, writer, and soldier. Decorated for bravery on the Western Front, he became one of the leading poets of the First World War. His poetry both described the horrors of the trenches, and satirised the patriotic pretensions of those who, in Sassoon’s view, were responsible for a jingoism-fuelled war.
On Passing The New Menin Gate – Siegfried Sassoon
Who will remember, passing through this Gate,
the unheroic dead who fed the guns?
Who shall absolve the foulness of their fate,-
Those doomed, conscripted, unvictorious ones?
Crudely renewed, the Salient holds its own.
Paid are its dim defenders by this pomp;
Paid, with a pile of peace-complacent stone,
The armies who endured that sullen swamp.
Here was the world’s worst wound. And here with pride
‘Their name liveth for ever’, the Gateway claims.
Was ever an immolation so belied
as these intolerably nameless names?
Well might the Dead who struggled in the slime
Rise and deride this sepulchre of crime.
TTG,You can get a lot more gun friendly than this part of Texas.I have been all over west Texas at least 25 times.This area is mostly Texas Mexican Americans.They are not nearly as “gun friendly” as the good ole Anglo boys who inhabit north Florida,most of Ga,Al,Ms La,Ok etc
Phillip e Cattar,
I can see that. The fetishization of firearms seems to largely be a “good ole Anglo boys” phenomenon. I can certainly appreciate a well made or historically significant firearm, but I prefer edged weapons (and tools) as a more worthwhile hobby.
If you need more than 10-12 rounds in a magazine, you likely should not be holding a rifle.
As a long time upland bird/waterfowl hunter, I have for a long time found it interesting that the Feds (and states) can legally limit firearm capacity to 3 rounds when hunting waterfowl. Also, require the shot be steel rather lead. Also, now in many states proof of a gun safety course is required for a hunting license.
Amazing that ducks get more gov’t protections (round limits, type of ammo, safety course) than school kids!
Well, Kadyrov has announced that Severdonestk has been taken.
It seems that they thought to have spent a week in this endeavour, but, in the end, decide to hardly apply to the task and take the city in three days.
They claim that the enemy withdrew once they heard that the Chechens were in the city…
All in all it seems they will not sleep on laurels y this victory, and claim that “the hunt of Bandera and shaitans continue”…
As they differentiate between Bandera and shaitans, I wonder which kind of people they include in the “shaitan” category….
Kissinger has the only sensible solution for this conflict……
Kissinger is so far up Putin’s backside he can’t tell the difference between scheisse and shinola.