TheOldGuy @TheOldGuy@qoto.org
I am a Democrat who supports Ukraine in their battle against The Russian Z fascist invaders.
I am a 73 year old Covid hermit who
lives on 10 acres in a sparsely populated area of the Ozarks. I heat with wood that is leftover by the lumber industry. When cutting oak for lumber only the trunk is used.
The largest town is population 2992. The county is 13k people scattered over 713 square miles.
Joined Dec 2022
Operational information of the General Staff as of 08.00 on 13.10.2024 regarding the Russian invasion
Glory to Ukraine!
The nine hundred and sixty-third day of the large-scale armed aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine has begun.
In total, 186 combat clashes were recorded during the past 24 hours.
According to detailed information, yesterday the enemy launched five missile strikes against the positions of Ukrainian units and populated areas using eight missiles, as well as 90 airstrikes, in particular, dropping 158 anti-aircraft missiles. In addition, he fired 4,243 shots, 156 of them from rocket salvo systems.
The aggressor carried out airstrikes, in particular, in the areas of the settlements of Richki, Katerynivka, Bunyakyne, Volfyna, Budka, Shalygine, and Gudove of the Sumy region; Kupyansk-Vuzlovy, Podoli, Kivsharivka, Kruglyakivka and Pershotravneve of Kharkiv region; Torske, Yuryivka, Toretsk, Petrivka, Myrnograd, Selidove, Rivnopil, Bogoyavlenka and Zelene Pole of the Donetsk region; the city of Zaporizhia and Mala Tokmachka of the Zaporizhia region; Lviv, Poniativka, Kherson region.
Over the past 24 hours, missile troops and artillery of the Defense Forces hit an air defense vehicle, six areas of concentration of weapons and military equipment, and one field ammunition depot of the Russian invaders.
There were 23 attacks by the occupiers in the Kupyan direction during the day. The defense forces repelled enemy assaults near Petropavlivka, Kucherivka, Kolisnykyvka, Kruglyakivka, Myasozharivka, Stepova Novoselivka, Pischany, Vyshnevoy, and Lozova.
The enemy attacked 19 times in the Lyman direction. Tried to move forward in the direction of Novomykhailivka, Grekivka, Nevsky, Novosadovo, and Torsky.
In the Siversky direction, Ukrainian defenders repelled three assaults by Russian invaders near Verkhnokamyanskyi, Ivano-Daryivka, and Vyimka.
In the Kramatorsk direction, the occupiers attacked nine times in the areas of Kalynyvka, Chasovoy Yar and Stupochky.
In the Toretsk direction, the enemy, supported by aviation, carried out 15 attacks in the Toretsk and Shcherbinivka areas.
In the Pokrovsky direction, our defenders stopped 36 assault and offensive actions of the aggressor towards the settlements of Myrolyubivka, Lysivka, Krutiy Yar, Selidove, Novotroitske, Myrnograd and Mykhailivka.
In the Kurakhiv direction, the Defense Forces repelled 47 attacks. The occupiers most actively tried to advance in the areas of Izmailivka, Hirnyk, Kurakhivka, Zhelany Drugy, Tsukuryny, Novodmytrivka, Novoselidivka, Georgiyivka, Kostyantynivka, Kurakhovoy, Zoryany, Dalnyy, and Antonivka.
In the Vremivsk direction, the enemy carried out four assaults on our positions in the Bogoyavlenka area. Actively engaged attack and bomber aircraft for strikes on the direction.
One enemy attack near Robotyny was repulsed in the Orihiv direction.
In the Dnieper direction, invaders attacked our positions nine times. They were repulsed and suffered losses.
No signs of the formation of enemy offensive groups were detected in the Volyn and Poliske directions.
On the border with the Chernihiv and Sumy regions, the enemy from the territory of the Russian Federation is actively using artillery and aviation in the areas of Ukrainian settlements.
The operation is ongoing in the Kursk region.
Our soldiers inflict significant losses in manpower and equipment on the occupying forces and actively undermine the offensive potential of the enemy in the rear.
In general, the Russian invaders lost 1,300 people last day. Also, Ukrainian soldiers destroyed 9 tanks, 49 armored combat vehicles, 29 artillery systems, one anti-aircraft missile system, two air defense systems, 45 operational-tactical UAVs, 71 vehicles and a unit of special equipment of the occupiers.
Join the Defense Forces!
Together we will win! Glory to Ukraine!
@ukrainejournal
Ukraine Must Join NATO After the War for Lasting Peace, Says Former US Ambassador William Taylor
William Taylor, former US Ambassador to Ukraine (2006–2009) and Chargé d’Affaires of the US to Ukraine (2019–2020), argues in The New York Times that peace in Europe depends on Ukraine’s integration into NATO once the war ends.
Taylor notes that the conflict will likely conclude when Ukraine either repels russian forces or international pressure forces russia to withdraw, or both, as President Zelenskyy has suggested. However, without NATO membership, Ukraine will remain vulnerable to future russian aggression, which has threatened its sovereignty for 300 years. Taylor asserts that Europe’s security is also at stake.
He recalls that Vladimir putin’s intent to destroy Ukraine as a nation has been evident since 2014 when russia invaded and annexed Crimea. Since February 2022, russia has intensified efforts to subjugate Ukraine through its full-scale invasion. Despite facing such brutality, Ukraine, with support from the US, Canada, Europe, and Indo-Pacific allies, has managed to hold off russian advances for over two years. Ukrainians are determined to continue their fight and, as President Biden said, they will win, but Taylor emphasizes that Ukraine needs more support now and guaranteed NATO membership after the war.
Reflecting on the NATO summit in Bucharest in 2008, Taylor believes the failure to secure Ukraine and Georgia’s membership path emboldened putin. russia subsequently invaded Georgia and later Ukraine. Had NATO provided stronger backing in 2008, the current war in Ukraine might have been averted. The key lesson from 2008, Taylor suggests, is that NATO membership is crucial for deterring russian aggression, and the US must act decisively at the next NATO summit in June.
Taylor acknowledges that russia will oppose Ukraine’s NATO membership, but stresses that the priority is ensuring peace and security, not appeasing moscow. In the meantime, NATO should take interim steps to integrate Ukraine, such as including Ukraine’s ambassador in the North Atlantic Council and inviting Ukrainian officers to NATO Military Committee meetings. Ukraine should also contribute to the Joint Expeditionary Force, a multinational unit led by the UK.
Most importantly, NATO should begin formal membership talks with Ukraine immediately so the country can swiftly join the alliance after the conflict ends. According to Taylor, Europe will not be secure or whole until Ukraine is part of NATO, and Ukraine will not agree to peace without that guarantee. The US has a leading role to play, and with sustained, determined, and innovative leadership, Ukraine’s NATO membership can become a reality, bringing lasting peace to Europe.
Source : NYT
~ France, Britain, Poland, Baltic States, Nordic nations, and most of Central and Eastern Europe now support Ukraine's NATO membership
The obstacle is the U.S. and Germany
The war can end if NATO accepts Ukraine, but politicians are afraid to show leadership and so people die ~
@ukrainejournal
Dream on old fool. Trump thinks Obama will vote for him. Meanwhile Obama is all in campaigning for Kamala.
https://www.palmerreport.com/analysis/the-sheer-absurdity-of-donald-trump/58509/
With Speaker Johnson declaring he no is no longer interested in “feeding Ukraine”, adding that he really believed Trump and Putin could end the war in a matter of a few phone calls, none of us can even risk a Trump administration.
If you have the right to vote in the US election please, I beg of you, make sure you do.
Russians post footage of how they use drones to drop grenades on civilians walking the street in Kherson
The despicable murderers are using people as target practise, terrorising the population of Ukraine.
US Vice President Kamala Harris released a letter from her doctor on Saturday that revealed she is in “excellent health” and “possesses the physical and mental resiliency” required to serve as president.
Harris made her medical information public to draw a contrast with Republican candidate Donald Trump, who has released only limited information about his health over the years, including after his ear was grazed by a bullet during an assassination attempt in July.

Dr. Joshua Simmons, a US Army colonel and physician to the vice president, wrote that Harris, 59, maintains a healthy, active lifestyle and that her most recent physical last April was “unremarkable.”
The report comes three weeks before the highly anticipated US election and concludes that Harris “possesses the physical and mental resiliency required to successfully execute the duties of the Presidency, to include those as Chief Executive, Head of State and Commander in Chief”.
🤬 The bastards from russia once again violated the rules and customs of warfare — 9 Ukrainian soldiers were shot dead in the Kursk region of russia - DeepState
👤 From our sources in the 1st OTBr, it became known that on October 10, the enemy shot drone fighters and associates in the area of N.P. Green Way. Additional details of the circumstances are being clarified, but it is known that the boys entered the position thinking that they were in the relative rear, but were already forced to come into contact with the enemy and shot back. However, the amount of ammunition was limited and they were forced to surrender.
🏹 In general, the situation in Kursk is not so happy. The Defense Forces are carrying out stabilization measures, but it is extremely difficult to restore what has been lost.
✈️ We have discussed this situation with other officers and commanders in different areas. UAV crews should take more seriously the possibility of an enemy breaching their position and not neglect safety.
As much as I would like to, I can not bring you the video. 9½ minutes.
Azov soldiers interrogated an occupier-criminal. How Russians carry out orders to execute prisoners - Azov
The Azov fighters captured a Russian from the group that shot Ukrainian prisoners of war in New York.
The moment of the brutal crime was captured on a UAV camera. The footage shows the occupiers shooting at unarmed fighters of the Ukrainian Defence Forces.
During interrogation, the Russian prisoner testified about the multiple executions of prisoners of war that his unit had committed and continue to commit. Moreover, the Russians kill even their own soldiers for refusing to take part in "cannon fodder" assaults.
❗️We warn you: viewer discretion is advised. But it is yet another proof for those who still do not see the actions of the Russians as crimes against humanity. For the occupiers, human life has no value.
In the future, this footage will be used as evidence of a war crime and a violation of the Geneva Convention.
MILITARY & STRATEGIC:
GROWING CONFIDENCE IN A DEMOCRATIC VICTORY
We all know how important the coming election is in the US. We are quite literally faced with a fork in the road - one side takes us down a dark and dangerous path towards a semi-fascist autocracy and the other is the real America that despite its many flaws is a decent and honest democrat at its core. It’s a truly shocking difference in possible futures.
However I am ever more certain that Kamala Harris will win the presidency. I am growing more certain that the Democrats will regain the House, and just about hold onto the Senate with a 50-50 (the Vice President is President of the Senate and casts the tie breaker, so Democrats would hold it that way). There’s even a possibility they may hold it 51-49.
The reason I think this, having just spent the morning and early afternoon online with my colleagues over there, is a slew of new polls that are quite different from the usual ones. These are very granular and observe the key districts in swing states such as Pennsylvania, Nebraska 2nd District, Michigan and Wisconsin.
What makes these polls so special is they are only usually run at two points - one in July and one now. Many of the big polling companies ignore them because they lack frequency, but Democrats are over the moon with the positivity and we know the Republicans are in full panic mode.
How do we know the Trump cult is worried? On Friday, 27 pro-Republican polls were released, all of them showing Trump winning. We already know that the source is pro-Trump because they always have been. In most cases they only poll Republicans and add a handful of democrats to make it look real. The purpose of these polls isn’t to convince the media or Trump supporters, its to skew the polling averages and create a false impression.
Why do they need to create the false impression of an impending victory? This is just one of those key tenets of fascism - skew the perception of the truth to suit your agenda. Trump has a money problem. He hasn’t raised anything like the staggering $1 billion plus (and that’s just from small donors), that the Democrats have. They don’t have the money and with ever more indications that they’re losing, coupled to Trump’s inability to speak with a civil tongue in his head without resorting to racial invective and mad theories only the paid up cult members believe, the donors are keeping their wallets shut. There are only so many people wanting to buy golden assassination edition sneakers for $500 or knock off Chinese watches for $100k, or a Donald Trump bible for $99, or a $100 glass Melania in a wedding dress ‘collectibles’.
It doesn’t help that yesterday the man with the couch habit and potential Vice-President ‘Shady’ JD Vance, when asked who the most important person was going to be in the next Trump administration, gave a deeply disturbing technical answer: The Attorney General, because the new administration will need to find and prosecute Trumps political, media, and ‘deep state’ opponents to make America ‘free’ again. This concept is not an America George Washington, or any of the other founders would have imagined when they wrote the constitution.
But we’re not giving them enough to win, merely survive. So something has to change.
This has to be the message, we need to get this out to everyone.
Military aid is great. But do you want Ukraine to win or merely survive and face an unjust peace, with no real security dictated by Putin?
If the answer is no, then campaign for victory aid is the answer.
I shall make it my mission to get anyone who will listen to understand the simple message, do you want Ukraine to win or not? Then step up if you do.
‘The Analyst’ MilStratOnX
Ukraine 🇺🇦 Must Win!
MILITARY & STRATEGIC:
KURSK & TORETSK
The situation in Kursk is beginning to seem a little odd.
The Russians have made some advances from the west but they haven’t really been trying very hard - it’s not clear why. They had this under control then stopped.
It wasn’t anything the Ukrainians did in the salient so the assumption is they ran out of ammo - being the most northern part of the front they were likely being supplied from the ammo depots Ukraine destroyed first as they were closest and would have been first to feel it. Given the speed at which they were deployed there were no stocks to cushion the cut off.
Ukrainians in Kursk are in no position to resume an offensive so they’re gaining time to establish defensive points.
The other aspect of the Russian operation is they are not under military command - it’s under FSB control, and Putin for reasons that remain speculation but make sense (only if you think like a Russian dictator), is seemingly unwilling to appoint an individual to oversee the operation. Think along the lines of, this is Russian land, being liberated by Russians and therefore whoever commands it will be seen as a hero and popular. Popular isn’t good when the only person allowed to be popular is Putin.
Meanwhile it’s no secret anymore that there’s a lot of questions being asked about Kursk in Moscow and nobody really understands why it hasn’t been dealt with.
Meanwhile in Toretsk, the Ukrainians managed to stop the Russians employing another of their spike attacks.
This involved a narrow push with assault troops to enter the city centre and roll up the high rise buildings that run east-west along its ‘spine’. This would have given them fire control over everything else and made it impossible to operate in the town, with Ukrainian forces split in two. Once established the spike spreads out from the centre - they’ve used this tactic successfully multiple times now.
However the Ukrainians have developed a solution.
Firstly, once you spot the spike developing you prevent it from moving forward using repeated counter attacks. You destroy the momentum by reducing the buildings in this case, that the Russians plan to take, to rubble.
Then, using drones to pin the Russians in the stem of the spike down, to a point where they were too afraid to even look out of a window there were so many drones waiting for them. One got stuck trying to get in through a window and the drone blew him in half.
Then the Ukrainian elite assault troops move in and root them out.
This completely collapsed the Russian plan to quickly take Toretsk and it remains in Ukrainian hands. It was a tough fight, literally room to room stairwell to landing search and eradicate.
Overall the Russians seem to have been suffering from a mixture of exhaustion, low morale and unquestionably the ammo shortages have caught up. This has provided a breathing space for the Ukrainians they really need. The ammo shortages will not last - a month at most I suspect - but by then the weather will hopefully have changed.
The weather currently is still between 13-23c along most of the frontline during a day. It’s unseasonably warm and dry with mostly clear skies. Ideal military operations weather without intense heat, and the ground is solid. The Russians will be very disappointed they can’t maximise the opportunity it provides.
Elsewhere I’m repeatedly hearing that the Zelensky Victory Plan is more than it seems and those few who have seen it say it ‘could’ work.
You know my view of plans, nothing goes wrong like one and few ever survive the reality of combat.
That there is a plan is both a morale boosting strategy for anyone involved in the fighting and shows they’re still trying to ensure a win
80% of Ukrainians allegedly, say they think they can win if given enough to do the job.
“There are still some who blame this war not on Putin’s lust for power but on Ukraine’s thirst for freedom, so I want to ask them: would they ever blame the Hungarians for the Soviet invasion in 1956? There is no European language where peace is synonymous with surrender and sovereignty is synonymous with occupation.” - these were the exact words with which Ursula von der Leyen addressed Viktor Orban.
This happened in response to the Hungarian prime minister's anti-European and anti-Ukrainian statements.
In addition, in the European Parliament, in protest against Hungary, a group of deputies sang the famous partisan song “Bella Ciao”.
Pleased that Orban is still catching hell today
When has he stepped out of it?
https://www.palmerreport.com/analysis/jd-vance-just-stepped-in-it-again-2/58534/
I am a Democrat who supports Ukraine in their battle against The Russian Z fascist invaders.
I am a 73 year old Covid hermit who
lives on 10 acres in a sparsely populated area of the Ozarks. I heat with wood that is leftover by the lumber industry. When cutting oak for lumber only the trunk is used.
The largest town is population 2992. The county is 13k people scattered over 713 square miles.
Joined Dec 2022
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