Yes, and potentially places like Lviv, hundreds of miles from Kiev and very close to borders with the EU could have held out far longer purely due to the geography. I'd dearly love to know what Russian the generals tasked with planning this campaign privately thought. I don't think we'll know until Putin is removed or dead.
Russian invasion of Ukraine | Fewer tweets, more discussion
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Yes, and potentially places like Lviv, hundreds of miles from Kiev and very close to borders with the EU could have held out far longer purely due to the geography. I'd dearly love to know what Russian the generals tasked with planning this campaign privately thought. I don't think we'll know until Putin is removed or dead.
Something similar to the aftermath of Iran - Iraq war probably.
Fair point. I didn't know that Russian forces did that - it smacks of an astonishing lack of awareness that I'd never thought possible from a country with the level of military intelligence that Russia has.
There were rumours that secret service officers just kept money they should have used to bribe Ukrainian officials. It's easy to think you can do a regime change when you believe the actual leaders are already on your payroll.
Kharkiv? The population there absolutely despises Russia now more than those living in the west, the city has been under constant shelling for ages now.
But the thing is, as others have said before, all points to them expecting Ukrainians to welcome them as liberation army. If such things were true, then no, in their heads there was no space for that street-for-street battle scenario of Kyiv, along with many other scenarios in which Ukrainians are putting up meaningful resistance.
Good shit is happening everywhere along the front, I can't keep up with twitter <3
Today Ukrainians have captured Balakliya, and advanced a good distance towards Izium.
This is according to the Express, so I place no value on the source, but their take is:
‘However, the Kherson attack seems to have been a cover for a major assault in Ukraine's east, which has sent shockwaves through Putin's army.’
The way I read that is that the Kherson offensive could essentially be a feint (like the Pas de Calais was during The Second World War), to draw all of Russia’s spare men and armour into a pocket surrounded by rivers on one side and the UAF on the other.
I’ve no idea if there’s any truth in this, and I suspect it’s just guesswork, but if it’s true, what a brilliantly executed piece of misinformation!
‘However, the Kherson attack seems to have been a cover for a major assault in Ukraine's east, which has sent shockwaves through Putin's army.’
The way I read that is that the Kherson offensive could essentially be a feint (like the Pas de Calais was during The Second World War), to draw all of Russia’s spare men and armour into a pocket surrounded by rivers on one side and the UAF on the other.
I’ve no idea if there’s any truth in this, and I suspect it’s just guesswork, but if it’s true, what a brilliantly executed piece of misinformation!
It was bit weird from the get go because they kept telling the world they are going to attack Kherson and that went for months. So it's definitely possible. It's also possible that both attacks are real.
We will have to wait and see but I did think about all the pre invasion reporting on an amphibious landing during the gulf war.
Time to kick Hungary out of the EU.
This is a bit rich coming from him:
- Putin said the way Britain chooses its leaders is “far from democratic”, a day after Liz Truss replaced Boris Johnson as prime minister. In his first public comments on Truss’s appointment, the Russian president alluded to the fact she was chosen in a leadership ballot by members of the Conservative party, not by the whole country.
That detail may have escaped me, but I thought the Gulf War was a massive blitz that started from Saudi Arabia.
The only amphibious operation in that war was a capture of offshore oil rigs by the SEALs.
From my understanding they have not actually captured the city yet but they have encircled it with Russian Rosgvardia troops trapped inside.
It seems like Balakliya is not the main goal of the operation and Ukrainian armor have already pushed further forward towards Shevschenkove.
My guess is that they have found a weak spot in the Russian defences and are now making a push for Kupiansk which would cut off all the major supply routs to Izyum.
Initially they only encircled but by the look of it today they have taken from the video/photo confirmations. Anyway, I’m just glad the momentum is finally with Ukraine armed forces right now.
Any experts here willing to explain to us less knowledgeable what could Russia do next?
From what I'm seeing, they could lose all gains from 2014 onwards, as the war has definitely taken a different turn. Now, I'm not really a military expert, and I may be completely off the mark here, but unless Russia somehow manages to mobilize large number of new recruits (which in turn means more dead for them) they are hardly going to turn this around, aren't they? Or am I missing something?
And could Ukraine be pushed into corner without liberating whole territory by other countries demanding peace?
From what I'm seeing, they could lose all gains from 2014 onwards, as the war has definitely taken a different turn. Now, I'm not really a military expert, and I may be completely off the mark here, but unless Russia somehow manages to mobilize large number of new recruits (which in turn means more dead for them) they are hardly going to turn this around, aren't they? Or am I missing something?
And could Ukraine be pushed into corner without liberating whole territory by other countries demanding peace?
Not unless Trump is back in the WH.
Russia burned so many bridges to Ukraine's supporters that I think it's unlikely that they want to spare Russia. Obviously there will always be calls for peace but no one will see the pressure to end this since Russia stopped it's gas exports.
It all is going on for so long now that states and businesses worked enough on alternatives to Russian resources that it simply isn't as important to regain access than it was in the first few months of the war.
You can already see how it strengthened their national identity — I'm reading/listening to a lot of both personal and professional accounts on the matter and people of the Russian-speaking regions specifically (most notably Kharkiv and Odessa) talk about how the war gave them a previously almost non-existent feeling of unity with people from the Western regions like Lviv and Zakarpattia. Russian language also seems to be getting gradually displaced even in cities like Odessa where talking in Ukrainian pre-2014 was seen as a huge oddity (if not to signify a certain nationalistic intent — not my words). Now everyone who can (and most Russian-speaking Ukrainians can) speak Ukrainian, prefers to use it instead of Russian for obvious reasons.
Even going by some instagram accounts that I follow, it had been an interesting change — I think only 2 Ukrainian accounts out of all that I follow that posted in Russian before the war continue to post in Russian up until this day and one of those (Alexander Rodnyansky Sr.) does it because he specifically targets Russian audience, trying to give them an alternative version of events. The rest had switched to Ukrainian.
The tragic thing is that I don't see how Russian-Ukrainian relations can realistically improve/get back to normal (even if it's a relative normality) in decades to come. The entire mythos of modern Ukraine will be based on a (hopefully) victory over Russia in their war for independence — and rightly so.
Yep. The Russian-Ukrainian relations will look like Irish-British relations between 1922 and 1985, at least until Russia undergoes a massive wave of democratic reforms to reject and condemn all remnants of Putin's reign.
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I don't think that even in their insane plans they thought that they'd capture Lviv. Going by what information we have they had hoped to quickly topple Zelensky and his government in Kyiv after securing the city & to install their own pro-Russian ruler in an almost internal coup.
FT did a great piece on it and it's probably the closest to truth we'd get until Russian FSB & army archives are going to be available for researchers.
https://ig.ft.com/russias-war-in-ukraine-mapped/
Great info here, and very persuasive. Thanks!
Rumors now that Shevchenkovoe direction is falling apart for Russians, if confirmed that would be huge from strategic point of view as the main supply route to Izium would now be under the artillery range.From my understanding they have not actually captured the city yet but they have encircled it with Russian Rosgvardia troops trapped inside.
It seems like Balakliya is not the main goal of the operation and Ukrainian armor have already pushed further forward towards Shevschenkove.
My guess is that they have found a weak spot in the Russian defences and are now making a push for Kupiansk which would cut off all the major supply routs to Izyum.
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Genuinely incredible to hear something like like. I guess it has been released to back up some of the images and actions of Macron since this started. Fair play, he has literally been calling Putin at Zelensky's request to attempt diplomacy.
Wow, I'm surprised that footage got released. Interesting to hear them talk to each other directly in English.
Some intense fighting caught up close here; imagine being in the middle of this (no gore unless I missed something):
Found that interesting too. I'm guessing a desire to communicate directly, without any changes in tone that can be caused by translation if they were to speak in their native languages.
Wow, I wasn't quite aware that the Russians had infiltrated the Hostomel airport with this many vehicles? I thought they had paratroopers there only?
Yeh, twitter kicking off today with positive news all round from all the usual sources. Mainly in Kharkiv Oblast, but Kherson and other areas also.
Illia, for one, is sounding pretty upbeat.
Illia, for one, is sounding pretty upbeat.
Two phases. You are thinking of the initial attack, but later Russia reached the airport with their ground troops (but weren't able to advance much further to Kiyv). I believe we are seeing the second phase here.
He almost makes it sound like they've routed them.
I wonder how much info the US is getting about Russian military capabilities during this war, either through captured equipment, eaves dropping etc, or through demonstrations of tactics.
We’re probably rewriting a bunch of white papers & battle plans.
Yea, looks like Ukraine managed to get control over quite a few villages in Kharkiv Oblast and there are a lot of videos with Russian PoWs circulating around today, most I have seen to date. And then we have this tweet which basically confirms the advances of Ukrainian forces. Fight for Izium should be coming soon.
I know we hotshotted an electronic warfare truck stateside though Poland as soon as it was captured early in the war. Russia’s military has been the subject of mockery, but they still do have some good pieces of kit (I believe?) and that was one of the Crown Jewels we’ve grabbed.
Also the US, China, and everyone else is watching and learning from this ‘modern’ war with a laser focus I’m sure.