TheOldGuy @TheOldGuy@qoto.org
I am a Democrat who supports Ukraine in their battle against The Russian 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 2993. The county is 13k people scattered over 713 square miles.
Joined Dec 2022
⚔️ Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Colonel-General Oleksandr Syrskyi:
Together with the Minister of Defense of Ukraine Rustem Umyerov, they made a working trip to the military units and units that maintain the defense in the Avdiyiv and Kupyan areas.
The operational environment is extremely complex and stressful. The Russian occupiers continue to increase their efforts and have a numerical advantage in personnel. They do not count on losses and continue to use the tactics of "meat assaults". For example, units of the Defense Forces of Ukraine repelled 29 attacks by Russian occupiers in the Avdiyiv district
alone. In addition, the enemy actively uses aviation, inflicts damage with guided aerial bombs, conducts dense mortar and artillery fire on our positions.
We are doing everything possible to prevent the enemy from advancing deep into our territory and to hold the occupied positions. Despite the difficult situation, the Defense Forces of Ukraine inflict significant losses on the enemy.
There is little official information about what is happening in Avdiivka and on the slopes.
The reports of the General Staff refer to the daily repulse of dozens of attacks on the city and in the area of the nearby villages of Tonenke, Nevelske, Novokalynove, Novobakhmutivka, Berdychi, Lastochkine, etc.
According to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), Russian troops are advancing into Avdiivka itself amid positional battles on the outskirts.
The so-called "Z-troopers" claim that their forces allegedly crossed the railway tracks in the northern part and entrenched themselves in summer houses, but there is no independent confirmation of this.
Barabash also says "Sometimes I read on Telegram channels that "Avdiivka has already fallen". This is definitely not the case. If someone says so, it is first of all disrespect to the defenders who protect the city. They know that this is not the case. As for "everything is lost", still far away," he said.
🇺🇦@ukraine_report🇺🇦🔱
Some comments from Russian Telegram channels about the sinking of Caesar Kunikov large landing ship:
"Why did we touch Khokhols [Ukrainians], soon they'll destroy our whole fleet..."
"But plenty of orders. Repeatedly wrote that the Black Sea Fleet is the most shameful and useless fleet of all. It's not a fleet at all. First of all, it is very infiltrated by Ukrainians, because Pypa once had a brilliant idea in 2014 to leave all Ukrainians who wanted to serve there.
Obviously, a huge number of traitors and saboteurs stayed there. The second problem of this fleet is that it was actively filled with hereditary degenerates from naval dynasties, who sent their offspring to serve in the warm sea, in the South. The result was extremely predictable. Nobody makes any conclusions, fools learn nothing. It's a disgrace!"
"Usefulness of large ships in 2024 is about 0. I hope the crew survived. And the loss of the ship is irrelevant to the fighting.
The trouble is that the whole world will laugh.
The enemy posted footage of the loss of the landing ship "Caesar Kunikov" near the coast of Crimea near the city of Alupka.
As in the case with "Ivanovets", the landing ship was attacked in the dark by several kamikaze drones at once, got a critical breach, lurched and sank. There is no exact information about the fate of the crew at the moment, the rescue operation continued all morning.
It can be stated that the current command of the Black Sea Fleet fully corresponds to its no less glorious predecessors from 2022.
The ships of the fleet, which still do not have any adequate means of countering the threat, are being shot like partridges".
( Anton Gerashchenko twitter X )
🇺🇦@ukraine_report🇺🇦🔱Liz
The terrorist state of Russia damages a hospital.
Russian troops shelled Selidove twice during the night of February 14.
The hospital building was damaged.
According to the head of Donetsk OVA, there are probably people under the rubble.
"There are probably 3 people under the rubble, including a child. Rescuers, police and local authorities are working on the spot," Filashkin said.
"Rescuers are carrying out search operations, extinguishing a fire on an area of 60 square meters, evacuating patients from damaged premises," wrote the head of the Donetsk OVA.
"Currently, we know about 1 injured person, rescue operations are ongoing," Vadym Filashkin informed.
There were about 100 patients in the hospital. They are currently being transported to Pokrovsk and Myrnograd hospitals.
The head of Donetsk OVA showed what the hospital looks like after the shelling.
🇺🇦@ukraine_report🇺🇦🔱Liz
🔥🔥🔥 More footage of the fire at the oil depot in the Kursk region.
Russian publications, noted that as a result of a "drone attack" there, a tank with the capacity of 100 tons could explode.
From "The Analyst":
UPDATES 14-15 FEBRUARY
Obviously the sinking of the Ropucha-III Class Landing Ship Cesare Kunikov was big news. These ships - most of which were sailed from the Baltic to the Black Sea in late 2021 and January 2022, were originally intended as sort of the force that would land troops at Odesa. That never happened and they’ve mostly been used as ferries for men and material ever since.
The Ukrainian forces used five of their latest Magura naval drones.
The result was a a rapid explosion and the vessel sank south of Crimea.
Russian forces intercepted messages clearly had them saying all they could see was a ‘large patch of oil’.
Ukraine used its ‘Wolf Pack’ tactics, where one drone acts as a decoy and the others - in this case four of them
according to the released video, attacked the opposite side. It’s another erosion of Russian abilities to supply Crimea - but even more shocking to me is that they know these are targets and they seem to do little or nothing to protect or escort them. They had plenty of warning the ship was a target - three waves of aerial drones crossed Crimea - so many in fact the Russian air force tried to intercept them with fighters to little success. The missile defences are so badly degraded from prior attacks on command sites and radars they’re next to useless.
AVDIVKA
Things are bad, it’s very very tense.
Russian forces pushed towards the road and came within meters of cutting it before being repulsed by the 3rd Airborne Assault Brigade, using Bradley’s. These regained some 150m of ground and added to Russian losses - so far averaging 645 men per day in Avdivka area alone.
In the south they continue to press the area of the Zenit defences.
The Ukrainians seem to be letting the Russians pour in every last bit of their manpower in the hope that sooner or later it runs out and then they’ll strike back harder.
Meanwhile Russian aviation lobbed 60 FAB bombs into the area - several of them clearly hitting their own forces - but they don’t seem to care about it and it doesn’t stop them.
Russia continues to press hard in the Kupiansk area too, along with two other areas on the eastern front. Holding back the Russian advance on Chasiv Yar has also becoming challenging.
The use of meat waves in the Kupiansk region continues to be the problem of the moment. Endless numbers of troops sent to their deaths for small gains in territory is a price Russian commanders are willing to pay. Their soviet era blocking troops force men forward and there is no way out. I wonder often how the Russian men and women back home would truly react if they knew how these battles were being conducted. This isn’t a defence war, it’s a war of conquest and prideful violence.
Wherever we look things are tense. Politics in America cannot be divorced from what is happening on the frontlines. Donald Trump is sacrificing Ukraine for his own ends - he controls what the Republicans do. American aid is crucial and he is stopping it.
Yet there has been good news. Allied nations are doing their utmost to push ammunition supplies higher and ramp up production but building the facilities takes time and money. Germany is doing its best, Finland is building new factories to build shells for Ukraine.
But it’s America that has the extraordinary industrial and military reserves that make the difference. 41% of global defence spending is American. Without America the tide of this war cannot be fully turned. But it doesn’t mean Russia wins. Ukraine will grind them down and make them pay for every meter of territory they take.
Slava Ukraini 🇺🇦!
To Trump, they are both troublesome women, therefore interchangeable
They gave him a week. He took 3 days.
https://www.palmerreport.com/analysis/jack-smith-strikes-back-4/54542/
Consequences of the Russian night missile attack on Ukraine
🔺Lviv
3 people were injured. There is a hit to an infrastructure object. In 16 residential buildings, part of the windows were blown out by the blast wave, cars were damaged. Previously, more than 10 rockets flew to the region, the head of the OVA, Maksym Kozytskyi, said.
🔺Kharkiv region
1 person died in the city of Chuguiv - an apartment building was destroyed and 3 private houses were damaged. Window glazing and roofs were damaged in 7 houses, Oleg Sinegubov, head of OVA, informs.
🔺 Zaporozhye
4 people were injured, wrote Anatoly Kurtev, secretary of the city council. There is a hit on an infrastructure object. Apartment buildings, an educational institution and premises of a trade facility were damaged.
🔺 Khmelnych region
2 people were injured, said Serhiy Tyurin, the first deputy chief of the OVA. Damage to civilian objects. There was no information about the victims.
🔺Dnipropetrovsk region
Objects of civil infrastructure were attacked, the head of Dnipropetrovsk OVA reported.
🔺 Poltava region
A warehouse in the Myrhorod district was hit - a fire on an area of 100 m² was recorded. There were no victims, reports the
head of OVA Philip Pronin.
🔺 Kyiv region
All the missiles flying at Kyiv were shot down, the KMVA claims. There are no casualties or damage. In the region, fragments of downed rockets fell in 2 settlements: 7 houses, several farm buildings and a car were damaged, reported the head of OVA Ruslan Kravchenko. People are whole.
Russia wants to install nukes in space
⚡️⚡️🛳 This morning, the Main Directorate of Intelligence, in cooperation with all components of the Security and Defence Forces of Ukraine, destroyed the large landing ship "Caesar Kunikov" of the Black Sea Fleet of the aggressor country
The enemy ship was attacked by "Magura V5" sea attack drones near the shores of the temporarily occupied Crimea, the city of Alupka.
This is the fourth ship of this type destroyed. In total, the russian Black Sea Fleet had 10 such ships in service, that is, 40% of large enemy landing ships have already been destroyed!!
@ukrainejournal
“FROM THE ANALYST”
GLOBAL MILITARY EXPENDITURE REACHES RECORD HIGH
$2.2 trillion dollars was spent on defence in 2023. That’s the highest ever amount in monetary terms. 41% of that was the United States alone, with it spending 70% of the money all of NATO spends (though that’s not really a fair comparison as NATO is not a global alliance).
The constant threat of increasing tensions in Europe, Russian aggression, Chinese and North Korean militarism, the increasingly aggressive stance of the Iranian régime, Russian interference in Africa, and a growing realisation that the world is not in a good place, all contributed.
It’s hard to comprehend sometimes that after years of living under the threat of nuclear Armageddon, and honestly believing we might just have managed to get out from under it, we’re back to square one. Only this time it’s even worse.
There were only two power centres in the First Cold War. Now there are at least three and nominally as many as five.
Technology has moved things in directions nobody could have imagined, and directions that have no fixed parameters.
Decision making is swamped with information that may or may not be real, AI stands to revolutionise that process and risks making as many mistakes as it does providing solutions.
The first power to adopt full quantum computing and employ it effectively will have the ability to break every possible encryption and security fence online in seconds. The race to encode secure communications in a format quantum computers will have to work at - maybe even find impossible to break - is just as urgent and well under way. It’s a race against time. Effective quantum computing is five, maybe ten years away. Quantum computing and AI combined? Possibly and arguably, something that should never happen.
And with these technologies coupled to drones and advanced missiles and avionics, the next 30 years - if we get through them - look set to be tumultuous.
And it’s all of this that’s spurred on a new era of global rearmament and an appreciation that trade, and trade alone, with an ideologically driven enemy who doesn’t really care about the money as a bottom line, but prefers power and control, really requires weapons to deter.
For most of The West, armaments are a last resort. The willingness to use them has to be made clear. Russia has struck fear into NATO. Those who dithered over defence are now facing the consequences of not saying no loudly and clearly enough back in 2014. The attack on Ukraine left the disbelievers without any arguments. The only thing Russia understands is force and the ability and willingness to use it. The same applies to China and the lunatic slave camp we know as North Korea.
Oddly enough the willingness to strike at Iranian assets outside of its borders has been key in keeping the lid on that situation. Even Iran doesn’t want an attack on its homeland.
Israel’s behaviour may be repugnant in so many ways - and it truly has been barbaric in recent months - but its willingness to do it has left the Arab world horrified and surprisingly muted. That will have a price of its own eventually, for both sides. But it proves that in the end armed might and the willingness to use it keeps your otherwise potentially aggressive neighbours in their box.
We have all rediscovered that weapons and the willingness to kill and destroy is the only means of keeping the peace. It’s who and what we are as a species.
Until we all decide war is obsolete it’s never going to change. And that’s never going to happen. Ever. So expect next year’s military expenditure report to get even higher.
@ukrainejournal
Trump's lawyer is claiming "selective prosecution". Jack Smith found a similar case judge Loose Cannon prosecuted and is asking for a similar ruling.
Republicans filed their 5th lawsuit.
I am a Democrat who supports Ukraine in their battle against The Russian 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 2993. The county is 13k people scattered over 713 square miles.
Joined Dec 2022
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