Yesterday was a possible peace?
Today that seems to have evaporated….
Several things appear to be happening all at once….
The media is going on and on about the Russian Presiddnt Putin being isolated from the reality of how bad his milkitary is doing….
That Russian military seems to be concentrating on locking down their gains in the South East part of the Ukraine…That area, which Zelensky has asked to be given back to the Ukraine is unlikely to be ever by the Ukraine’s…
The Russian’s answer to Zelensky seems to be?
“You take whatever we want to let you have when we finish’….
4 Million of the 44 Milion Ukrainan’s have left the country for neighbouring states…
In the end?
Some will stay put…
But already some are returning the North Western part of the Ukraine which will be the surviving territory….
The Russian’s overall objective now seems to be just expanding outward from the Crimea , which they annexed several years ago…
Ukrainian assertions that it was pushing back Russian forces near Kyiv generally appear to be true, according to a Washington Post reporter on the ground. But new satellite images of the bombed-out southern port city of Mariupol document severe damage to civilian infrastructure. The photos depict long lines outside a grocery store in the city, where local leaders have warned of a severe shortage of basic necessities.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Wednesday that the talks in Istanbul did not yield “any breakthroughs” but that concrete proposals put forward by Kyiv marked a “positive” step. Ukraine’s negotiators in Istanbul said they could exchange military neutrality for security guarantees, and an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Kyiv was working with 10 nations — including the United States, Britain, China and Israel — on a security agreement to ensure the “horrors that the Russians have brought to the Ukrainian people” are never repeated.
Here’s what to know
When Russia began its invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, Vladimir Putin and his inner circle were not the only people who expected a rapid Russian march to victory. Many independent observers did, too.
Instead, Ukraine has held firm.
Ukrainian civilians have shown resilience amid terrible suffering. Its military has kept Russia from taking over Kyiv and even regained some ground in the northeast. And the Russian military has suffered heavy losses, partly because of an overly ambitious strategy — evidently reflecting Putin’s wishes more than military reality — that left its forces stretched thin and vulnerable to counterattacks.
Russia’s early failures explain its new willingness to hold peace negotiations and its promised pullback from Kyiv. U.S. officials understandably expressed skepticism yesterday about whether Putin is genuinely open to ending the war. But Russia really does appear to have narrowed its goals, in response to its battlefield struggles. That’s good news for Ukraine.
At the same time, Russia’s new strategy creates a potential challenge: Increasingly, Russia appears to be concentrating its effort in fewer areas — particularly the Donbas region, in eastern Ukraine.
Focusing on Donbas has multiple advantages for Russia. In recent weeks, it has already made progress in taking over territory there. It can hold that territory without the long, exposed supply lines that Ukraine has successfully attacked elsewhere. A battle over Donbas also gives Russia an opportunity to encircle and destroy a large chunk of Ukraine’s military. More than a third of all Ukrainian troops may be in the region, fighting both the separatists and the Russian military.
Russia appears to be on the verge of being able to create such a pincer around these Ukrainian troops, coming from both the east and the south. Experts refer to this Russian progress as a “land bridge” from Crimea to the Donbas.
The city of Mariupol, in southern Donbas, is a part of this story. Putin and his military planners have attacked Mariupol so brutally because it is the largest city in the potential land bridge that they do not yet control. It also has a major port….