2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine (Part 2)

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From the Guardian liveblog:

Ukraine predicts it will recapture Kherson region by September

Ukraine is now predicting that it will recapture the southern region of Kherson by September.

Sergiy Khlan, an aide to the head of Kherson region, said in an interview with Ukrainian television: “We can say that the Kherson region will definitely be liberated by September, and all the occupiers’ plans will fail,” AFP reports.

Kherson, which is an important region for Ukrainian agriculture, was taken by Russian troops early on in the war. But the Ukrainian army, bolstered by new supplies of Western long-range artillery, have been making gains in the area in recent weeks.

“We see that our armed forces are advancing openly. We can say that we are switching from defensive to counteroffensive actions,”Khlan said.

Russian forces seized the region’s main city, also called Kherson, on 3 March. It was the first major city to fall following Moscow’s invasion.

(Monday’s articles moved to my new post)

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Russian propaganda outlets: wE HAvE brokN Th spir1tS of thE UkrAiniaN yoOth

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Thread:

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Yet another nasty poke in the blinkered eyes of US neo-fascist Russian Military enthusiasts:

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Lol, except OMG We need more spending!! Because Ruskies!!

As if “the size of a school bus” has any meaning with regard to nuclear weapons.

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This video cheered me up. The guy who made this has a lot of videos like this, but this is the first one I’ve seen with English subtitles.

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:confused:

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It’s especially funny when Mr. Orban himself really has a bit of the Innsmouth look going on.

If he wants to uphold the purity of some mythic Hungarian race(something, something, glorious Magyar history; moslem hordes invading europe, something); not picking up bloated fish/frog features by consorting with Deep Ones seems like it would be a good start.

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It would be interesting, and probably useful to the right people, to know if they aren’t maintaining them properly because that’s just the level of competence and professionalism that they roll with; or because artillery barrels, especially if rifled, are something that can only be produced with metallurgy and tooling of relatively high standard and they simply don’t have the barrels to be swapping them out every 1,500 shots.

My layman’s understanding is that, even when it is functioning, ‘indigenous’ Russian heavy industry is reliant on some fairly critical imports(like high end machine tools) and some of those have been embargoed since their 2014 actions in Crimea; and, between sheer passage of time and widespread looting, the supplies of Soviet-era stuff still in working order are far from unlimited; while post-soviet production was rather sporadic because of the unstable funding situation.

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Given that urban warfare typically favors the defender, especially if the attacker isn’t willing to just level the place, I wouldn’t want to be in the shoes of a Ukrainian force trying to retake the city; but I have to wonder how stubborn the Russians inside would actually be if the Ukrainian forces moving in the more open ground around the city either actually encircle it or at least get close enough that attempting to supply the city via the Dnieper would mean trying to navigate some fairly shallow and complex water while Ukrainians shoot at you; and trying to resupply by land means getting a HIMARS strike on any collection of supplies large enough to be worth the shot.

If they were truly motivated they could probably hold out for a long time(feed on the populace for supplies; take advantage of the fact that small-arms ammo is much less bulky than artillery supplies to stock up on that in every basement and nook and cranny than then fight it out street by street); but it just seems hard to imagine, with Russian morale as currently reported, the forces they have in the city deciding to go full Stalingrad on the situation, rather than accept either “lay down arms and we’ll actually follow the Geneva Convention” or “as long as you are running toward the Russian border, no Crimea doesn’t count, we won’t start shooting” when the situation around the city is lost enough that their supply lines are within range of Ukrainian guns.

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The Putin regime behaves like an abusive MAGAt spouse: claims of “togetherness” and “protection” masking humiliation and brutality.

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To Russia, everything is always the fault of others. Either the victim of whatever atrocity they’re committing right now, or the nebulous and perfidious West.

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True of right-wingers in general. There’s a reason Tucker Carlson and his ilk love Putin so much, one that goes deeper than seeing him as the champion of “white civilisation”.

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