Petraeus is not helping 
Iâm really curious where Ukrainians are going to stop
Learn from the experience of Bush the elder. Do not stop until you reach the capital city and depose the leader.
US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin has said that he believes Ukraine is âmaking progressâ in the war.
In a CNN interview that aired on Sunday, Austin attributes the changing tide of war to the calibre of Ukrainian soldiers and their use of weapons provided to them by the US and NATO countries.
âWhat weâre seeing now is a kind of change in the battlefield dynamicsâŠTheyâve done very, very well in the Kharkiv area and moved to take advantage of opportunities. The fight in the â the Kherson regionâs going a bit slower, but theyâre making progress,â said Austin.
He added that Ukrainian soldiers have been using âtechnology like HIMARSâ and that they are using it in the âright wayâŠ[to] conduct attacks on things like logistical stores and command and control, thatâs taking away â taken away significant capability from the Russians.â
âItâs not just about the equipment that you have. Itâs about how you employ that equipment, how you synchronize things together to create battlefield effects that then can create opportunities,â he said.
Let me repeat that last statement: Itâs about how you employ that equipment, how you synchronize things together to create battlefield effects that then can create opportunities
âŠwhich is exactly what the Russians seem incapable of. And, of course, they donât have so much of the equipment any more, either. Not that their equipment was all that good to start with.
Short thread:
Whatâs the Russian equivalent of âFUBARâ?
So we knew that people were bussed in to create the appearance of a massive crowd celebrating Putinâs speech on annexation. This is par for the course for pro-government rallies in Russia:
But it also turns out they had to add canned cheering to the TV broadcasts because the crowd was completely apathetic. And that is kinda surprising. When thereâs an energetic guy on a stage with a big sound system and a fancy lighting rig, even if the crowd doesnât particularly care about what he is talking about, when he calls to make some noise youâd expect noise to happen just out of some deep reptilian brain reflex. How are you supposed to mobilize a country for war if you canât even get a call-and-response going?
Better organised than a typical Trump rally, Iâll give them that.
Well, the penalties for not getting it right in Russia often involve windows, Trumpâs just even more likely to not pay youâŠ
Iâm seeing reports that a brigade of 
special forces were in control at Lyman and Stavky to the north-east, and got wiped out. Anyone have any firm reports?
War is cruel.
Kadyrov prepared to sacrifice his sons for Putin
Maybe this?
Level 22: Gotovyi (ready). The implication here is that you are ready to be packed up and carried off into the cemetery. The fact that there are still three levels above this is a testament to Russiaâs inconceivable complexity.
Thatâs one way to make sure they canât kill him when they get impatient for power.
