Here we go again-Ukraine once again

[Dargo]

Ukrainian forces likely conducted a deliberate withdrawal from Lysychansk, resulting in the Russian seizure of the city on July 2. Geolocated footage showed Russian forces casually walking around northern and southeastern neighborhoods in Lysychansk in a way that suggests that there are few or no remaining Ukrainian forces in the city as of July 2.[1] Ukrainian military officials did not publicly announce a troop withdrawal but neither did they report on defensive battles around Lysychansk. Ukrainian Internal Affairs Minister Vadym Denysenko vaguely noted that Russian forces have a “high probability” of capturing Lysychansk but that they will have a difficult time advancing in Donetsk Oblast past Slovyansk and Kramatorsk.[2] Ukrainian National Guard Spokesperson Ruslan Muzychuk rejected reports of Russian forces seizing and encircling Lysychansk, but these denials are likely outdated or erroneous.[3] The Luhansk People’s Republic (LNR) Ambassador to Russia, Rodion Miroshnik, had previously claimed that Ukrainian forces began withdrawing from Lysychansk on June 28.[4] ISW will continue to monitor the situation... https://understandingwar.org/backgro...essment-july-2

[Dargo]

The Russians say they control the strategically located city of Lysychansk and with it the entire province of Lugansk. "The occupiers are gaining a foothold," Governor Serhi Hajdaj said on Telegram this morning. Russia's defense minister told President Putin that the Russian army had "liberated" all of Lugansk with the capture of the latter city. An adviser to the Ukrainian defense minister tells Reuters news agency that he cannot confirm that Ukrainian soldiers have left Lysychansk and that the city is now in Russian hands.

The capture of Lysychansk would be a boost for the Russians, although it is a city about the size of the city of 83.45 km². "Lysychansk, like Sievierodonetsk, is primarily of symbolic value," says former Commander of the Royal Dutch Army Mart de Kruif. "You notice very well that Ukrainians do not want to fight themselves to death for these two cities." The American think tank Institute for the Study of War (ISW) assumes that Ukrainian troops probably "intentionally withdrew" from Lysychansk, after which the Russians were able to take the city. De Kruif says that the cities of Slovyansk and Kramatorsk in Donetsk province are particularly important, and that the Ukrainians gained time with the fighting in Lysychansk. "A delaying battle, therefore, for the Russians who are going to come." Indeed, those two other cities form a crossroads of roads and railroads between Kharkov and Donetsk, and they are also larger. "Because of the terrain with a lot of rivers and waterways, these cities are well defendable. But the question is whether the Ukrainians will be able to take out artillery and missiles at long range."

"Around Kharkov, little is happening on the ground; there is a military standstill there," says De Kruif. "And around Kherson, Ukrainian troops are advancing very slowly, there their sabotage activities are increasing." On Saturday evening, President Zelensky said that the Russians have now occupied 2,600 sites, and that the Ukrainian army has liberated over 1,000.

The price Russia must pay for victory in Lysychansk is high. American historian Philips O'Brien of the University of St Andrews in Scotland points out on social media that it took Russia nearly two and a half months to conquer an area the size of the London region, with Russia suffering "heavy losses.https://twitter.com/PhillipsPOBrien/...727jPmsOTFWRXw " Lack of discipline, outdated weapons, problems in bringing in recruits and the many changes of guard (enforced by Putin) within the army leadership are said to have led to victory being achieved only after 77 days. The battle for the Donbas is already "one of the longest lasting battles of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries," according to O'Brien. It remains to be seen whether the Russians can hold their conquered territory. The Ukrainian army is fighting back fiercely and new, heavier weapons are expected from Western allies in the near future. A Ukrainian army spokesman showed wariness on Sunday, citing those supplies. According to him, "the game in the Donbas was far from over." "For Ukrainians, life is the top priority. So sometimes we withdraw from certain areas, only to retake them later.

Update: The last Ukrainian troops from the eastern city of Lysychansk have left there, the Ukrainian military says. According to the army leadership, continuing to defend the city would have "fatal consequences." "In order to spare the lives of Ukrainian troops, we have decided to withdraw," the army leadership reported in a statement.

[Dargo]

The Ukrainian ambassador to Turkey says Turkish customs have stopped a Russian cargo ship carrying stolen grain from Ukraine. "We have full cooperation. The ship is currently at the entrance to the port, it has been stopped by the customs of Turkey," Ambassador Vasyl Bodnar said on Ukrainian television.

According to Bodnar, what will happen to the ship will be determined tomorrow. Last Friday, he wrote on https://twitter.com/VasylBodnar/stat...82081486815233 that the ship Zhibek Zholy that had left from the occupied Ukrainian port city of Berdjansk had entered the port of Turkish Karasu. He also wrote that he was confident that Turkey would make decisions to "prevent attempts to violate Ukrainian territorial integrity." Turkey maintains good ties with both Russia and Ukraine, and previously signaled its willingness to play a mediating role.

[Jimbuna]

Russia says it is now in full control of the eastern city of Lysychansk - a claim not confirmed by Ukraine.

Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu told President Putin that his forces now completely held the Luhansk region.

Earlier, the head of Russia's Chechen Republic, Ramzan Kadyrov, published video apparently showing Chechen fighters in the centre of Lysychansk.

Further west, the Ukrainian-held city of Slovyansk came under heavy shelling, with at least six people killed.

It is in Donetsk region, which with Luhansk forms the industrial Donbas.

Just before he launched the war, President Putin recognised all of Luhansk and Donetsk as independent of Ukraine. Russian proxy forces began an insurgency there in 2014.

Just over a week ago Russian troops captured Severodonetsk, a city reduced to ruins by weeks of Russian bombardment.

Ukraine's defence ministry insists that Lysychansk - the last major city it controlled in Luhansk region - is "not under the full control" of Russian forces. But there is plenty of video on social media confirming that they have now entered the city. Some also appears to show a handful of locals who stayed behind greeting the Russian forces as "liberators". There's always been a strong element of pro-Russian sentiment there.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-62030051

[Jimbuna]

Russia has accused Ukraine over explosions which reportedly killed three people in the city of Belgorod, near the border with Ukraine.

The regional governor said the blasts hit dozens of residential buildings and air defences had been activated.

The Kremlin said that Sunday's attack had been a deliberate attempt by Ukrainian forces to target civilians.

Ukraine dismissed the claim, saying the Russians had lied about similar incidents in the past.

Belgorod - a city of 370,000 that lies just north of Ukraine's second city, Kharkiv - has been attacked on several occasions since Moscow invaded Ukraine in February.

The latest incident happened in the early hours of Sunday morning.

Russian defence ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said air defences had destroyed three Ukrainian Tochka-U ballistic missiles with cluster warheads, but fragments of one of them fell on a block of flats.

"This missile attack was intentionally planned and launched at the civilian population," he added.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-62025541

[Jimbuna]

Russia says it has salvaged a large landing ship scuttled by its crew after a Ukrainian missile strike damaged it in the port of Berdyansk on 24 March.

A Telegram post by a Russian-appointed official in southern Ukraine, Vladimir Rogov, says Tochka-U ballistic missiles had targeted the Russian-held port.

The crew sank the ship "to prevent detonation of the on-board munitions by the fire that had started", he said.

At the time Ukraine said it had hit the ship. Only now has Russia confirmed it.

Russian reports do not give details of the ship's damage, but say it will be towed to Kerch in Crimea. The Black Sea peninsula was annexed by Russia in 2014.

The Ukrainian military's report on the missile strike on 24 March named the landing ship as the Orsk - but the ship salvaged by Russia is the Saratov. The Orsk is another of the six large landing ships in Russia's Black Sea Fleet.

The fleet's website kchf.ru confirms that the Saratov was damaged and sank in port on 24 March - but does not mention the Ukrainian missile attack.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-62022476

[Jimbuna]

[Jimbuna]

[Aktungbby]

Originally Posted by Aktungbby

Now that Vlad the Bastard is "shifting his focus in Ukraine", ie Plan A has failed and there really are a lot of babushkas with dead sons for nothing, Putin must answer for his actions befor the Hague's ICC as an absolute precondition of restoring Russia's global standing. One overriding aspect of NATO and the West's current cohesive bonding is the Nazi '40s lesson 1: appeasement is fatal against Hitleresque megalomaniacs and must not happen...moreover like the famous quote after the Iraq war by a Russian general on Russian military hardware's failure against American equipment: "We have nothing to sell." The Neo-Soviet Iron Curtain 'special military operation' has shown itself to be a murderous land-grab krieg with no blitz , 7 dead generals and 40,000+ casualties simply to gain Russian Lebensraum by rape, pillage, and devastation by a corruption riddled conscript army. They should be removed from the UN Security Council at the minimum. My attention is still focused on the four military cargo'd vessels, recently departed from Vladivostak currently enroute to a destination in Europe...with the Dardanelles closed to such traffic by Turkey? Putin has also ordered more submarines into the Atlantic...!!

Originally Posted by Dargo

The battle for the Donbas is already "one of the longest lasting battles of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries," according to O'Brien. It remains to be seen whether the Russians can hold their conquered territory. The Ukrainian army is fighting back fiercely and new, heavier weapons are expected from Western allies in the near future. A Ukrainian army spokesman showed wariness on Sunday, citing those supplies. According to him, "the game in the Donbas was far from over." "For Ukrainians, life is the top priority. So sometimes we withdraw from certain areas, only to retake them later.

Originally Posted by Dargo

The Ukrainian ambassador to Turkey says Turkish customs have stopped a Russian cargo ship carrying stolen grain from Ukraine. "We have full cooperation. The ship is currently at the entrance to the port, it has been stopped by the customs of Turkey," Ambassador Vasyl Bodnar said on Ukrainian television.

According to Bodnar, what will happen to the ship will be determined tomorrow. Last Friday, he wrote on https://twitter.com/VasylBodnar/stat...82081486815233 that the ship Zhibek Zholy that had left from the occupied Ukrainian port city of Berdjansk had entered the port of Turkish Karasu. He also wrote that he was confident that Turkey would make decisions to "prevent attempts to violate Ukrainian territorial integrity." Turkey maintains good ties with both Russia and Ukraine, and previously signaled its willingness to play a mediating role.

It would be interesting to know where the grain was headed. Currently, we are in fortuitous circumstances: President Erdogan is not wavering on his control of shipping in the Bosphorus; he has lifted his objections to Sweden and Finland joining NATO and even Putin has recanted his sabre-rattling saying they are "free to do what they want"...which may provide some reassurance to the 3 former Soviet Baltic states...particularly Lithuania. It also solidifies the northern flank of the European EU wall. As 'proxy' wars go, and this war being a direct descendant of Germany's WWI efforts on the Eastern front followed by Hitler's Operation Barbarossa, NATO's 'feeding the fight' to "neo-nazi" Ukraine with superior weapons et al currently contains neo"Peter the Grate's" snatch-and-grab tactics which went unanswered in Crimea in 2014. All this serves to give pause to 'limitless friend' Premier Xi's Taiwan ambitions after the snatch and grab in Tibet which went unanswered in 1959... and that " other shoe" will drop eventually in Russian-Sino war against a 'unipolar' 'Merican globe. America does poorly in wrongful 'little brown people' wars, ie 'Nam and Afghanistan, and is handier at caucasian-based European conflicts... thus we deal in our own post-WWII nostalgia; even as Putin attempts to restore Stalin's stalwart ol' Iron Curtain...let's hope the protagonist dreamers don't go nuclear and die shortly of stress and old age! ...and where are those 4 ships from Vladivostak gotten to anyway?

[Jimbuna]

Ukraine's military has confirmed that the eastern city of Lysychansk has fallen to Russian forces.

"After heavy fighting for Lysychansk, the defence forces of Ukraine were forced to withdraw from their occupied positions and lines," the army general staff said.

Earlier Russia's Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said his forces had captured Lysychansk and taken full control of Luhansk region.

Ukraine's troops were outgunned there.

Its general staff said that "in order to preserve the lives of Ukrainian defenders, a decision was made to withdraw".

It said the Russians had multiple advantages in artillery, aircraft, manpower and other forces.

Earlier, the head of Russia's Chechen Republic, Ramzan Kadyrov, published video apparently showing Chechen fighters in the centre of Lysychansk.

Further west, the Ukrainian-held city of Slovyansk came under heavy shelling, with at least six people killed.

It is in Donetsk region, which with Luhansk forms the industrial Donbas.

Just before he launched the war, President Vladimir Putin recognised all of Luhansk and Donetsk as independent of Ukraine. Russian proxy forces began an insurgency there in 2014.

Just over a week ago Russian troops captured Severodonetsk, a city reduced to ruins by weeks of Russian bombardment.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-62030051

[Dargo]

Is the West really prepared to pay the price of defeating Putin?
For Ukraine to win against Russia, western powers still have to answer painful questions of themselves... https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/f...67c05bfe2fcd32

[Jimbuna]

Russia to shift focus to capturing Donetsk region

Russia will shift the main focus of its war in Ukraine to trying to seize all of the Donetsk region after capturing neighbouring Luhansk, the Luhansk region's governor said on Monday.

Governor Serhiy Gaidai said that he expected the city of Sloviansk and the town of Bakhmut in particular to come under attack as Russia tries to take full control of what is known as the Donbas in eastern Ukraine.

Russia says it has established full control over the Luhansk region following a withdrawal by Ukrainian forces from the bombed-out city of Lysychansk.

On the loss of Lysychansk, Mr Gaidai said: "It hurts a lot, but it's not losing the war."

In his nightly address, Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, vowed to regain control over the area with the help of long-range Western weapons.

[Jimbuna]

Ukraine sends Independence Day wishes to US, but Russia declines

Today is, of course, 4 July - Independence Day in the US.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has sent his best wishes to the people of America and their President, Joe Biden.

"Happy Independence Day to the people of the USA and @POTUS! I wish the friendly people of the USA peace and prosperity. I appreciate the leadership assistance of the United States in Ukraine's defending of common values - Freedom, Democracy and Independence," Zelensky tweeted.

The US has been a staunch ally of Ukraine since Russia began the invasion of its neighbour on 24 February, providing Kyiv's armed forces with millions of dollars of weapons, while Washington has also targeted Moscow's economy and elites with financial sanctions.

For its part, Moscow has declined to send best wishes to the US on 4 July.

The AFP news agency reported Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov as telling reporters: "Congratulations this year can hardly be considered appropriate. The United States' unfriendly policies are the reason."

[Jimbuna]

Putin thanks troops for 'liberating' Luhansk region

Russian President Vladimir Putin has congratulated Russian troops on "liberating" the eastern Ukrainian region of Luhansk, in Donbas.

In a televised meeting with Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu, Putin says the troops involved in the operation should rest, but other military units should continue fighting.

Putin has also awarded the title of "Hero of Russia" to two generals following the capture of the region.

Russia announced on Sunday that it now controls the whole of the Luhansk region after it captured the strategically important city of Lysychansk.

Moscow has said that its "special military operation" - as it calls the invasion of Ukraine - is intended to "liberate" eastern Ukraine from "nationalists". The eastern region has been the focus of its military action after initial attempts to take control of the capital Kyiv failed.

[Jimbuna]