RUNNING UPDATES ON THE CONFLICT IN UKRAINE - 17.02.2023
RUNNING UPDATES ON THE CONFLICT IN UKRAINE - 17.02.2023
Including geopolitical issues affecting the balance of power in the ongoing end game war to establish our common future, a closely monitored prison planet or tolerance for diverse modes of governance.
THE ROAD TO THE ULTIMATE CONCLUSION OF WORLD WAR III RUNS THROUGH HERE.
*** UKRAINE : THE END GAME IS ON ITS WAY ***
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“Ukraine. What is the truth...?
Why won’t western media tell both sides…?”
***
THE UNREPORTED ATROCITY IN LUGANSK, 2 JUNE 2014
A lot has been said about atrocities in the western media claimed to have been perpetrated by the Russians, for example at Bucha and Mariupol among others. These assertions are conveyed on the say so of the Ukrainian authorities. How willing though are western news broadcasters to convey atrocities attributed to the Ukrainians? The following will I think provide the answer.
If anyone wonders if they are receiving accurate coverage of the conflict in Ukraine I would suggest watching the video below of an event which occurred on the 2nd of June 2014 and ask themselves if they recall hearing about it on any mainstream media news channel at the time.
The video is harrowing to watch. The bodies (five women and three men) are real. Yet across western media there was only one single news report that occurred a day later. This was from CNN and occurred only because a CNN team happened to be nearby at the time of the atrocity and so the network could hardly ignore it as all others so obviously did.
The video below shows the unvarnished truth that was not considered newsworthy in western mainstream news.
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Lead feature:
RAGE AGAINST THE WAR MACHINE
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Latest update on events within Ukraine and their knock-on effects on the western world, by Alexander Mercouris of ‘The Duran’. (203k subscribers):
Russia Advance Paraskeyevka; Out of Ammo West Urges Kiev Adopt NATO Tactics; Hawley US Over-Extended.
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‘Kim Iversen’ (511k subscribers):
Anti-War Activists Infighting Reaches Boiling Point - Chris Hedges Weighs In.
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‘The Duran’ (335k subscribers):
Hope strategy at Munich Security Conference.
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'RealTruthTalk' (5.92):
Seymour Hersh: How U.S. Took Out The Nord Stream Pipeline.
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'FINANCE MAIL' (32k subscribers):
Scott Ritter: Ukrainians Are Gonna Get Swamped. Russian Offensive In Ukraine.
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'Scott Ritter' (53.5k subscribers):
❗Power struggle in Ukraine | Zelensky government corruption | Scott Ritter Show.
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'The Grayzone' (261k subscribers):
The War on Balloons - The Grayzone live.
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'The Jimmy Dore Show' (1.14k subscribers):
Liberals Working Overtime To Undermine Anti-War Rally.
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Blood-Soaked USAID Chief Samantha Power Targeting Hungary!
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Latest update from Brian Berletic of 'The New Atlas' (214k subscribers):
How China is Helping the Solomon Islands Fight Against US Encroachment.
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'Through the eyes of' (73.2k subscribers):
SCOTT RITTER ON "WHY RUSSIA NEEDS TO WIN THIS WAR."
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'VotumTV: Heretics' (3.67k subscribers):
Interview with Scott Ritter.
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'Hindustan Times' (5.18 million subscribers):
India's stand on West hypocrisy vindicated; Russia's nuclear fuel sales to EU soar to record high.
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'Levan Gudadze' (4.66k subscribers):
Evacuation from Bakhmut, No jets for Ukraine, Polish Legion, Russia - WTO, Life in Russia...
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Latest update from Alex Christoforou of ‘The Duran’ (159k subscribers):
Norway Goodfellas. Nuland, overthrow Putin. 97% Russia military in Ukraine. EU toilet sanctions. U/1
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'Li Jingjing 李菁菁' (32.8k subscribers):
You‘re LIED TO about Syria! | Col. Richard Black revealed the truth of Syrian crisis.
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'Chris Hedges Fan Club' (64.7k subscribers):
Michael Parenti | RECESSIONS are WEAPONS FOR THE 1%.
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Michael Parenti | CAPITALISMS WAR AGAINST DEMOCRACY.
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'VRevelations' (655 subscribers):
Ukrainian Army Begins Burning Houses In Bakhmut: Smoke Screen.
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'John Mark Dougan' (46.8k subscribers):
Crazy Week since Nordstream Revelations.
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'ShanghaiEye魔都眼' (130k subscribers):
Russia, Ukraine exchange 202 prisoners of war in latest swap.
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'The Left Lens with Danny Haiphong' (43.2k subscribers):
Chris Hedges: NATO to Blame for DANGEROUS Escalations in Ukraine War.
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Russia Today (RT) News.
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'Opiniono' (1.13k subscribers):
From Russia Today (RT) - Academic Irina Abramova to RT: Russian government must encourage companies to work with Africa.
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'Redacted' (1.72 million subscribers):
This is War! Biden’s Nord Stream attack back fires as Putin demands UN meeting | Redacted Live.
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'FINANCE MAIL' (32k subscribers):
Col. Douglas Macgregor: Ukraine Is Out Of Ammunition, Russian Large-Scale Offensive [M1 Abrams Tank].
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'John Mearsheimer' (5.35k subscribers):
America is the world's problem.
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'Jeffrey Sachs' (11.1k subscribers):
THEY don't want PEACE.
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'Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom' (95.6k subscribers):
NATO cannot supply Ukraine - Scott Ritter.
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'FINANCE MAIL' (32k subscribers):
[Russia-Ukraine Update] Don't Get Fooled By Them ! They Are Two Faced Since The Beginning Of The War.
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'ANDREWNEF' (4.76k subscribers):
John Mearsheimer on War, Elitist Leaders, and Nukes.
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'ASK RUSSIANS' (2.57k subscribers):
Why socialism is better than capitalism.
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'Hindustan Times' (5.18 million subscribers):
NATO Chief pleads Putin’s ‘friend’ Erdogan to let Sweden, Finland join military bloc | Details:
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Putin tells U.S. to ‘not provoke Russia’; Warns of strike on satellites amid war. Here’s why:
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'Crimea Putin's Red Line': U.S. warns Ukraine over plans to retake territory amid Russia's war
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Putin's men crush Ukraine's 'sabotage bid'; Russia's round the clock hellfire on eastern frontlines.
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Putin's warplanes roar near United States; Second Russian dare in less than a week.
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'BORZZIKMAN' (124k subscribers):
Russian 'New-Gen Thermonuclear Fist' is Preparing a Surprise for PENTAGON at the end of February.
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'Breaking Points' (875k subscribers):
Republican Base TURNS On Ukraine Aid | Breaking Points.
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MSNBC's CRINGE 'Girl Boss' Nikki Haley Defense | Breaking Points.
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'George Galloway' (246k subscribers):
Look what you’ve done to the rain, Joe.
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Godfrey Bloom Official' (34.8k subscribers):
I TOLD YOU!
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'The Convo Couch' (47.2k subscribers):
The Peace Activists w/Daniel McAdams and Diane Sare.
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'Schiller Institute' (65.4k subscribers):
The World Is Facing WW3, How Do We Save the World? — Kim Dotcom and Helga Zepp-LaRouche.
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'Syriana Analysis' (43.1k subscribers):
Clayton Morris of Redacted: Please Help the People of Syria!
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‘BreakThrough News’ (146k subscribers):
Sanctions & the Earthquake, US’s UFO Shooting Spree, and Ohio Train Catastrophe.
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'Asian Quicktake' (14.7k subscribers):
DUMP $31bn! China Sells U.S. Debt for 4 Straight Month and Buy 598 Tons of Gold.丨Debt ceiling.
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'Investing Future' (82.3k subscribers):
Putin's BRAND NEW OIL Masterplan Shocks The World COUNTERING Western Sanctions.
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'Gerald Celente' (197k subscribers):
TRENDS IN THE NEWS.
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'TFIGlobal' (430k subscribers):
Who is behind the failed assassination attempt of deputy Chechnya head?
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‘Firstpost’ (606k subscribers):
Europe Buying More Nuclear Fuel From Russia | Vantage with Palki Sharma.
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'NäköKulmaPulma' (314 subscribers):
Signal Corps Units on combat duty during the special military operation.
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'TeleTruth' (15.4k subscribers):
Rare footage, Khosta artillery blows up Ukrainian fortress in Donbass.
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'BreakThrough News' (146k subscribers):
Ohio Train Derailment Was a ‘Disaster Waiting to Happen’.
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'Russell Brand' (6.2 million subscribers):
Is The System Collapsing? With Guest Tim Pool - #083 - Stay Free With Russell Brand PREVIEW.
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'Pronews TV' (122k subscribers):
H Κίνα εντάσσει το Ιράν στους BRICS – Η Δύση βλέπει το αντίπαλο «μπλοκ» να μεγαλώνει.
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Σέιμουρ Χερς: «Η ανατίναξη των Nord Stream θα έχει άσχημο τέλος για τις ΗΠΑ».
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'RealTruthTalk' (5.92k subscribers):
Zircon Hypersonic 'Nuke' Missile.
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'Keep It Secret News' (1.53k subscribers):
Ukrainian Army Error.
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'Info Defense' (215 subscribers):
Recent Ukrainian law allows forced "evacuation" of kids without parental consent. 🤔
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Article from Russia Today (RT) - 17th February 2023:
‘Polish Legion’ to fight for Ukraine – media.
Kiev is setting up another foreign volunteer unit, according to Onet news portal.
The Ukrainian Defense Ministry has approved the creation of a special forces unit composed entirely of volunteers from Poland, the Polish news outlet Onet claimed on Friday. The decision was reportedly made in Kiev earlier this week.
The unit’s organizer, a Polish citizen who has fought in Ukraine since last February, met with representatives of the Defense Ministry on Wednesday, the outlet said. The unit will “probably” be named the Polish Volunteer Legion, and won’t be a “typical frontline unit” but an “elite” group charged with reconnaissance, sabotage and other special tasks.
“It is extremely important to me that I was given the opportunity to form the first Polish special unit in Ukraine,” the organizer, whose name was withheld for security reasons, told Onet. “Poland is the country that supports Ukraine the most,” he added. “I am sure that our unit will be a model for other similar formations.”
A German unit is also being raised, according to the outlet. There are already two “legions” of foreign volunteers in Kiev’s service, one from Russia and another from Belarus, each consisting of “several dozen” militants.
“It is much easier with Poles than with Belarusians or Russians, who come from enemy countries,” the Ukrainian Defense Ministry official, likewise unnamed, told Onet. Handling the necessary paperwork will take a week or two, he added.
The unit’s members are planning to set up a recruitment center in Poland, but this has “not yet been agreed with the Polish authorities,” Onet reported. While official Warsaw has yet to comment, the Twitter account Visegrad 24 – reportedly run by the Polish government – cheered the news of the Legion.
Warsaw has been one of the most outspoken champions for Kiev, hosting the NATO logistics hub for supplying Ukraine with weapons and ammunition, and taking in refugees. The Polish government has also taken a hard line on sanctions against Russia and led the efforts to supply Ukraine with tanks – giving it hundreds of its own T-72s last year, then bullying Germany into approving the export of Leopards in January.
Poland has also turned a blind eye to its nationals enlisting in the Ukrainian military, where over 1,200 had lost their lives as of late November, according to the outlet Niezalezny Dziennik Polityczny. The outlet, which is critical of the government in Warsaw, claimed that the new “American-style” cemetery at Olsztyn was intended for more efficient burials amid the rising number of casualties.
Onet is Poland’s largest internet news portal, and is owned by Ringier Axel Springer, a German consortium with an openly pro-NATO editorial policy.
Article from Russia Today (RT) - 17th February 2023 : ‘Polish Legion’ to fight for Ukraine – media
MAPPING/ANALYSIS CHANNELS
* Updates will be added here as and when they become available.
LATEST UPDATE FROM DIMA OF THE MILITARY SUMMARY CHANNEL (85.4k subscribers):
Ukraine. Military Summary And Analysis 2023.02.17
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KEEP IT SECRET NEWS CHANNEL (1.51k subscribers):
No update posted so far today
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'NWE WAR REPORTS' (30.2k subscribers):
BREAKING | Paraskoviivka Falls.
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LATEST UPDATE FROM DEFENSE POLITICS ASIA (55.4k subscribers):
No update posted so far today
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LATEST UPDATE FROM 'DPA War’ (22.7k subscribers):
No update posted so far today
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LATEST UPDATE BY THETI MAPPING (21.5k subscribers):
No update posted so far today
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LATEST UPDATE FROM ‘WAR IN UKRAINE’ (35.6k subscribers):
No update posted so far today
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LATEST UPDATE BY ‘BALKAN MAPPING’ (135k subscribers):
No update posted so far today
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LATEST UPDATE BY THE ‘MILITARY AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS NETWORK’ (57.1k subscribers):
No update posted so far today
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LATEST UPDATE FROM ‘RYBAR’:
❗️🇷🇺🇺🇦🎞 Rybar Daily Digest of the Special Military Operation: February 16, 2023.
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LATEST UPDATE FROM ‘M MAPPING’ (4.42k subscribers):
Ukraine:Day 358[17 February] New Map.
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LATEST UPDATE FROM WEEB UNION (59.2k subscribers):
Quick Update 17/02/23 | Ukrainian Counterattack South of Bakhmut | RAF Captures Hryanikivka.
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Full Front Update 17/02/23.
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Detailed situation reports can be found on a daily basis concerning events in Ukraine over the past 24 hours at the ‘A SKEPTIC’ Substack account:
Link to 'A SKEPTIC' Substack channel.
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SUPPORTING SCOTT RITTER
I've been listening to Scott Ritter describe how things are for him and I suspect have been for him for quite some time now.
He has been doing a LOT of unpaid work with a great many interview requests coming in that he has been ready and willing to agree to. But the work where receives some pay for have suffered due to this, being left until the wee small hours of the night to complete work on.
Scott, I think you will agree, has been one of the most influential voices out there on Russia and Ukraine.
I was moved by Scott's words to take an annual subscription to his Substack account that he runs in coordination with his colleague on 'U.S. Tour of Duty', Jeff Norman. This is the main way that Scott recommends to help him with finances with which to upgrade his delivery of comment on Russia and Ukraine, via a better microphone etc. and perhaps the creation of a recording studio in his basement to create a more professional and impressive look. To invest in these things he would like to be sure that this has a viable financial future.
Would you also like to help by subscribing at one of the various levels to Scott's Substack account? I hope so. If so the link is here:
Below you'll find the edited part of the video where Scott talks of his commitments to get the facts out on events in Ukraine and of the finances that would come in handy to enhance their delivery:
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VICTORY BELONGS TO RUSSIA: IT IS ONLY A MATTER OF TIME
Each day that passes makes a conclusive Russian victory in the Donbass and beyond more certain. As Russia bolsters her forces, and weaponry, those of Ukraine decrease. Russian forces gain ready access to rest and recuperation as troop numbers increase. The increasingly exhausted and demoralised Ukrainian troops have an ever decreasing prospect of such respite. This situation is likely to bring them to complete breakdown as Russia unleashes the firepower of the more modern and advanced weaponry that is arriving with the newly mobilised Russian troops.
The various Ukrainian offensives are now weak when confronted by the reinforced Russian lines. A few futile efforts achieve quite miserable results before fire reigns down on the Ukrainian troops and they are forced back to their starting positions.
And now, all this being said, we have arrived at the wet, and later, freezing conditions where these pathetic Ukrainian forces will be subject to myriad forms of abject misery with death and injury all around them while they lie sodden or frozen, abandoned to their fate by Kiev.
The pitiable young and old of Ukraine have been frogmarched to their deaths as cannon-fodder while the bestial elites of the collective West urge their "president" to add more to their number there at the gates of Hell and their doom. We must feel for the majority of them as they are not the Nazis we revile, in most part they are decent men, fathers, sons, brothers, husband and uncles, who no doubt saw through the coup of 2014 for what it was. But sadly, their fate seems sealed.
Nothing will stop Russia now. Every factor favours them. Victory will be Russia's. In Donbass and beyond and in due course across the world.
Victory belongs to Russia: It is now only a matter of time.
UPDATES TO BE ADDED HERE AS AND WHEN THEY BECOME AVAILABLE OVER THE NEXT 24 HOURS.
UPDATES TO BE ADDED HERE AS AND WHEN THEY BECOME AVAILABLE OVER THE NEXT 24 HOURS
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UKRAINE IS IN THE PROCESS OF DISAPPEARING AS A VIABLE NATION
The losses in manpower and machines of Ukraine have been absolutely enormous. As Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission has recently admitted, at least 100,000 Ukrainian troops have died and just about every military vehicle of importance that Ukraine had prior to February 24th have been destroyed. The figure estimating Ukrainian dead is now over 150,000 and climbing each day. Military vehicles, weaponry and munitions are now increasingly in short supply.
Russia is grinding down the combination of foreign volunteers, young and old men mobilised and barely given a month's training plus western specialists. Russia has launched up to a dozen new military satellites in recent months which give them eyes on Ukrainian troop movements and potentially precise locations of artillery and large group movements.
The energy production capacity of Ukraine is nearing total degradation and once complete and the ground hard enough Russia will use a 500,000 strong army to sweep all before it in its upcoming offensive.
You have to wonder what the Ukrainians are banking on right now. Yes, they can keep throwing men forward, mostly at this point barely trained for a month, usually less. Men up to the age of 70. Women too no doubt. And what will they achieve exactly? They might hold back the highly trained Russian military with its far superior artillery power for a limited period. This is more or less great for that Russian military. Come on while we wait here and fire six times as many shells at you constantly decimating your numbers. Then we will move forward a bit and do the same all over again. This is why the Russian commander and that of Wagner talk respectively of 'grinding down' the Ukrainians and putting them through a 'meat grinder'. So, what exactly can be achieved by Ukraine in these circumstances?
The USA and others provide greater financial support and more and better weapons. But this hasn't worked until now and there are no signs that it will work in the future. No matter which supposedly 'game-changer' weapons have been given the Ukrainians the Russian military still grinds on. This is because Russia has the overwhelming need to succeed... knowing its very nationhood is at stake. Barack Obama said a number of years ago that Russia had 'escalatory dominance' and we are seeing that now. Russia has an enormous capacity to wage war. Its industry is now even more geared up to destroy Ukraine than it has ever been in times past. Russia is not going to lose. It cannot afford to and it has all the capacity it needs to win. Sooner or later Ukraine will crack.
Delay in negotiating a settlement will have two consequences however. 1. Even more Ukrainians will die. 2. Even more Ukrainians territory will be lost. There is a third to add to these two. Ukraine is parcelled up into pieces, one taken by Poland, another by Hungary and a third by Romania. These are the realities. It seems the only reason that they cannot be faced by those pushing for ever more war is that they cannot face the humiliation of defeat. But it is coming... no matter WHAT they do.
Ukraine will certainly lose Bakhmut sooner or later. There is simply no way Russia will give up on the task of taking it. Too much hinges on this. Recent reports, including that of the commander of the Ukrainian 'Svoboda' unit, tell of horrendous conditions in and around Bakhmut with dead Ukrainian troops littering the fields and even the trenches themselves, trenches which flood on a regular basis. The local hospitals are receiving on average 150 casualties per day with amputations relatively common. Across the battlefield it has been estimated that Ukraine is losing between 500 and 800 troops each day. This is not sustainable. Russia will pound Bakhmut to dust to take it and in fact it suits the Russian military high command to do so as the object is to eliminate as much of the Ukrainian military forces as possible, to put them into a "meat grinder" as the head of Wagner has said. Sooner or later Bakhmut will fall.
Ukraine stands no chance of retaining anything of the Donbass in the weeks ahead. Russian troops are arriving with the most modern of weaponry at their disposal. Russia is readying its military for an overwhelming surge that will hit Ukrainian positions, logistic centres, repair shops, warehouses, arms dumps and quite possibly state command and control entities hard.
There is no possible way Ukraine can do anything significant against what's to come... especially as its western sponsors are realising the game is just about over and that Russia is going to be the winner taking all.
Russia attempted to find a peaceful way by which the mixed marriage Russian-Ukrainian population of eastern Ukraine could retain their language, pro-Russian culture and allegiances in the face of the president and government they by majority had elected, being ousted by means of an insurrection. The people in that region of Ukraine had expected that change would come through the democratic process, not through riot, or by any other means.
The events which took place on Maidan Square in Kiev therefore shocked and horrified them and they knew with some confidence what was to come. They knew for instance that those who had taken power were those who had failed to secure their positions by democratic means. They knew also that their language, allegiances, pro-Russian culture and indeed their lives were at threat and that henceforth they and their children down the generations would never again experience the ability to reliably cast their vote and have the government they favoured be elected to power.
In effect what had occurred in Kiev was a coup, and they knew it. In addition to all of the above they had seen various members of the United States political elite appear on the square exhorting those there to continue and achieve their goal of bringing the democratically-elected president and government down. A president who had announced that elections would be brought forward to a few months hence in which the entire matter of Ukraine linking ever closer to the European Union could be decided democratically. This was not to be. Instead many were to die including around fifteen policemen. I wonder if anyone reading this can imagine what the political elites of the USA would do if such a number of police officers were killed by similar insurrections in their country?
The people in eastern Ukraine read the writing on the wall and when the new authorities in Kiev said they were going to act against the Russian language every fear they had was confirmed. Were they to accept this new government forced on them and accept to that their already hated population (called 'Moskals' by the ultra-nationalists and most of the general public in western Ukraine, i.e. Russians) was not to be further excluded from any right to a democratic vote, their language itself and that of their children, and perhaps even the right to live at all? Of course not. They took matters into their hands by largely peaceful means, took over administration functions in their regions and demanded a level of autonomy that would guarantee their future rights.
Putin, when asked by the leaders of what became self-asserting republics, to let them join the Russian Federation, refused, stating they must remain within the boundaries of Ukraine but that he would work with others to attain for them the level of autonomy within Ukraine that they required. At the time of asking Kiev had sent its military plus the most violent of the Maidan militias to the republics and they had begun bombarding their villages, towns and cities.
Putin worked with Germany, France and the Ukrainian authorities on the autonomy issue to bring peace and reconciliation to the region. The Minsk Accords were agreed and ratified in 2015 and the next seven years were spent attempting to have them implemented. Ultimately the Ukrainian authorities stated they had no further interest in them. In the interim, from 2015 to 2021 NATO and others within the West has reinforced, trained and financed the Ukrainian army plus put in place massive lines of defence bordering the two regions.
During this period also a constant bombardment of the civilian populations of the two regions was carried out by the Ukrainian military and the so-called 'Volunteer Battalions' such as the 'Azov Battalion'. There was scant, if any, reporting in the West of this latter fact.
When the Ukrainians said they were no longer interested in Minsk and the ex-president of Ukraine, Poroshenko, said it had merely been a ruse to let Ukraine re-arm Russia understood the situation. Then Zelensky, the current president talked of regaining Ukraine's nuclear status and swore to take Crimea back by force. Then, there was a sharp rise in the shelling of the republics.
Putin saw that the peaceful means he had hoped would resolve the question of the Donbass region was no longer recognised by Ukraine or its western supporters. It was for these and other reasons, such as NATO pushing for Ukraine accession to it and with Ukraine having become a de facto NATO state, with nothing at all evident that might provide a peaceful path forward to resolve the thorny questions Minsk ought to have answered that Putin took Russia into Ukraine.
Now a complete and overwhelming Russian victory is only a matter of time…
***\O/***