Here we go again-Ukraine once again

[Skybird]

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says Turkey “will not back down” on its opposition to Sweden joining NATO until all of its “demands are met.”
Erdogan said his country's expectations were made clear and that "we defend the same principles that we defended last year." [CNN]

Last week the Swedes allowed a single Iraqi migrant to rip a Koran apart although they must have known that then they could forget NATO membership for many more months to come. I must conclude that they are not so eager as they claim to get in.

The right procedurer would have been to not let that man go ahead, pour honey into Erdoghan'S ears, get the membership treaty signed - and then burn the Koran. Its called: pragmatism.

I think it is time to let American and European supplies and repair goods for the Turkish armed forces suffer from unexplained mysterious failures and problems in the logistics networks. The stock market could also be a suitable stage to discreetly send a message of the growing threat. The Turkish currency does not do too well, it was heard. Throwing one more incendiary device into this fire could - heaven forbid - cause the flames to leap up again in the private sector, triggering unforeseeable additional damage and bringing an intensification of the struggle for existence of ordinary citizens and small businessmen.

[Skybird]

https://www-tagesspiegel-de.translat..._x_tr_pto=wapp

No air cover for Ukrainians. Both Russian fixed wing CAS as well as helicopters go down on them. No visible weakening of Russian defences. Also, jamming seems to ave become a rela problem now, the Russians got their acts together finally. American JDAMs and other ammuntiion depending on GPS, now often go amiss, with their nayvjugation link to the sdatellites beign jammed. Thats why the Ukrainians want so desperately more British Storm Shadows and the German Taurus, since these have alternative systems for navigation allowing them to even find their targets without satellite link.

Col Reisner listed four brigades by name that so far had not participated in the fights, but some of their artillery batallions have now been moved forward. In reverse conclusion that means that of 12 attack brigades, eight already are engaged.


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In order to persuade Russia to extend the grain agreement with Ukraine, the EU is considering possible concessions. According to diplomats, the idea is to offer the Russian Agricultural Bank to tolerate circumvention of EU sanctions. This could therefore found a subsidiary in order to be able to use the international financial communication network Swift again for the processing of certain payments. The bank itself is currently not allowed to do this due to sanctions due to the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine. [WN]

[Jimbuna]

[Jimbuna]

A shocking video shows how the dead and wounded from Vladimir Putin’s war dead are moved by helicopter to annexed Crimea - as tourists swim in the sea.

The summer playground peninsula has become a key route for Russia as the Kremlin tries to hide the scale of its war losses from its own people.

The footage shows three ambulances waiting for the latest two helicopter flights back from the front in the Kherson region.

Meanwhile tourists splash in the Black Sea seemingly untroubled as the victims of Putin’s war are flown to a military base close to their beach.

Reports say Crimea is being used increasingly to hospitalise the war wounded as the Kremlin's boys are pummelled during Ukraine’s counteroffensive.

Numbers are so high that locals cannot get treatment in the annexed territory’s clinics, it has been reported.

Russia routinely seeks to hide the toll of dead and maimed soldier from its people.

“It is difficult for me to talk about the nature of the diseases or injuries that Russian servicemen receive,” said Refat Chubarov, a senior figure in the Crimean Tatar community.

“But the fact is that almost all the moderately or seriously wounded are evacuated to Crimea, and not only local military but also civilian hospitals.”

The dead - known as Cargo 200 - are moved here too alongside the wounded, Cargo 300.

The trend may indicate Russia expects to be pushed back from Kherson region by the Ukrainian advance.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/travel/new...f4d75dc9&ei=14

[tonschk]

Scott Ritter - Ukraine's ill-Fated Offensive

[Jimbuna]

Scott Ritter, the American author, pundit, former United States Marine Corps intelligence officer, former United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) weapons inspector, and a convicted sex offender.

Would fit in well amongst the ranks of the Russian invaders.

[sh3rules]

Originally Posted by Jimbuna

The trend may indicate Russia expects to be pushed back from Kherson region by the Ukrainian advance.

Hopefully Ukraine will get plenty of ammo and equipment to drive the invaders out

[tonschk]

Ukraine Loses 500 Fighters as Russia Unleashes TOS-1 Flamethrowers

[Jimbuna]

[Jimbuna]

Just when you may have been thinking the Russian criminal invaders had sunk to an all time low before the eyes of the civilised world....they have likely managed to lower the bar even further.

First the dam and now the nuclear plant.

[Skybird]

No surprise, if true. Russia runs scorched earth policies. What they cannot steal and keep, they destroy. And the nuclear contamination of farmland and soil deals another blow to Ukrainian agriculture - and strengthens the world position of Russian wheat exports.

[Jimbuna]

^ Yes and as things currently stand I now believe we are heading for a second Cold War which will last for decades.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Jimbuna

^ Yes and as things currently stand I now believe we are heading for a second Cold War which will last for decades.

Hasnt that been clear since a long time now, since this war began? Even since 2014? Or 2008?
The writing was on the wall. The West hoped for the better. Hopes are no strategy. We dropped clueless into the chaos, therefore.

[tonschk]

NATO's Plot Against Russia Fails

[Dargo]

No longer gaining ground but 'maximum destruction of the Russian army' is now Ukraine's primary goal

inflicting as much damage as possible on the Russian army, rather than trying to gain a few kilometres of ground at a high material, but mostly human cost. The Ukrainian army seems to be shifting its focus in the counteroffensive, at least temporarily. The Ukrainian counteroffensive has been "particularly fruitful" in recent days. That message was delivered by Oleksiy Danilov, the secretary of Ukraine's National Security and Defence Council, on Tuesday. Danilov's optimism contrasts sharply with reports in recent weeks, in which Ukraine itself also acknowledged that the offensive against Russian forces in the south and east of the country was "slower than hoped".

But according to Danilov, the Ukrainian army is fulfilling its main tasks, which, at least for the moment, no longer seems to be liberating as much territory as possible. "At this stage of active hostilities, task number one of the Ukrainian defence force is the maximum destruction of manpower, equipment, fuel depots, military vehicles, command posts, artillery and air defences of the Russian army," Danilov said on Twitter. "The last few days have been particularly fruitful in this." That Ukraine appears to be shifting its focus is also the assessment of the US Institute for the Study of War (ISW). Ukraine still reports gradual gains in ground, for example on the flanks of Bakhmut, but "the armed forces seem to be focusing on creating an 'asymmetric attrition rate' (a higher degree of attrition on the Russian side than on the Ukrainian side, TT) by targeting Russian troops and equipment," the think tank's latest assessment sounds. "Ukrainian troops are spared, but at the expense of a slower pace in terrain gains." The intention in this way is to exhaust the Russian army so much that at some point it still has insufficient resources to defend the entire front - still 700 kilometres long - so that it collapses at a certain spot, after which Ukraine can break through there.

Ukraine appears to have effectively learned from the first weeks of the counteroffensive. Then attacks ran aground on the extensive minefields laid by Russia on the front. The stationary tanks and armoured vehicles, including Western-supplied Leopard tanks, then provided an easy target for Russian artillery and Ka-52 attack helicopters with anti-tank missiles. Therefore, until more advanced anti-aircraft defence comes from the West, it seems to make little sense for Ukraine to keep repeating such attacks, given the high cost in human lives and equipment they entail. Instead, it actively seeks out Russian artillery, for example, and then destroys it with precision munitions. "A war of destruction is equivalent to a war of kilometres," Danilov said. "More equipment destroyed ultimately means more liberated territory. The more effective the former, the more of the latter. We are moving forward calmly, smartly and step by step."

Danilov's assessment is supported by images from the field and figures from the Ukrainian General Staff, although these cannot be independently verified. Still, the evolution in itself is undeniable. Ukraine claims to have destroyed a total of 4,288 pieces of Russian artillery now, including more than 800 since 1 June alone. The specialist blog Oryx, which keeps daily track of losses on both sides based on available open-source images from the battlefield (and is thus an underestimate), provisionally puts it at 682 documented losses. So the actual figure is somewhere in between the two. Conversely, of course, the same thing is happening and Russia is looking for Ukrainian targets. Earlier this week, images appeared of a first broken British AS-90 howitzer, of which Ukraine received about 30.

The Russian air force is also being actively targeted. Last Friday, Ukraine strafed Berdjansk airport, deep in occupied territory on the Sea of Azov. In that attack, presumably carried out with British Storm Shadow missiles, a Russian headquarters was destroyed, according to the Ukrainian military. But the airport is also a key take-off and landing site for Russian attack helicopters, satellite images show. Whether these could have been hit is not clear.

Then on Tuesday evening, another large explosion took place in Makijivka near the city of Donetsk. Ukraine claims to have hit an ammunition depot in the process; Russian occupation authorities say there were 1 dead and 36 wounded civilians. Neither claim can be independently verified, but video footage shows how a large stockpile of Russian ammunition for rocket launchers was stored at that location. The fact that little ground is currently being gained is therefore "not an indication of a stalemate or evidence that Ukraine can no longer reclaim large chunks of territory," the ISW writes in conclusion. The 2022 autumn offensive on the eastern bank of the Dnieper in Cherson was also originally slow, until the Russian army suddenly decided to withdraw after weeks of intense Ukrainian shelling. "Even then, there were alternating phases of rapid terrain gains and long periods of preparations and fighting focused on wearing down the Russian army. Eventually, these made Russian positions on the western bank of the river untenable." https://www.demorgen.be/nieuws/niet-...aine~bfef9c28/