Russia is losing a A LOT of its troops….
And tanks…..
(They are reaching back for old tanks from deades ago to be pressed into service…So new troops are sent into battle with outdated weapons)
US and European countries are gonna be restocking their ammo for a LONG time to make up for the Ukraine supplies they have sent…
The Ukraine also….
But nowhere near the Russian numbers…..
Prisoner swaps contiune….
The fight in the Donetsk /Bakhmut region is tough.…..
The report is one million Ukrainians have moved to Poland next door…..
Another 900,000 + to Germany…
The UN says over 8 million people had left the Ukraine, but some of those have actually returned by to the Ukraine….
Millions would have been displaced in the South Eastern part of the country where Russian/Ukraine battles have leveled whole cities ….
Belarus isn’t in a hurry to get involved in the Russian/Ukraine conflict….
Israel moves to bring its Kyiv embassy up to full strength joining a growing number of countries doing the same….
Israeli worries over Iran in Syria where it actually works with the Russians won’t allow it to have the Russians pissed at them…..
It seems that Europe’s winter will continue to be relativity mild, which will mean less gas needed from Russia, which means the Russian are taking a loss revenue for its economy….
Vice President Harris is the latest American highlevel offical to make the trip to Europe, she is in Germany….
President Biden is expected to arrive in Poland in two weeks…..
US Defense Sec. Austin is visiting Estonia…..
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Russia launched a predawn assault with missiles and drones. The attacks came hours after Moscow floated balloons over Kyiv, in what Ukrainian officials said was a tactic to “confuse” defense systems. Here’s what we’re covering today:
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The predawn attack killed one person and targeted critical infrastructure.
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Belarusian leader outlines condition for joining Ukraine war before talks with Putin.
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Some Russian assault units suffered up to 80 percent losses in the east, Ukraine says.
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For the first time since the war began, an Israeli minister visits Kyiv.
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Russia lost about half of its tanks since invading Ukraine, a new report says….
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After the invasion, nearly one million people from Ukraine arrived in Germany and remained in 2022….
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Here’s the latest on the war and its ripple effects across the globe.
- The United States and its allies are planning major new sanctions against Russia to coincide with the Feb. 24 anniversary of the start of the war, Victoria Nuland, the under secretary of state for political affairs, said Thursday. “You will see around the 24th a big new package of sanctions from both the US and all of our G7 partners,” she told reporters. The package will include more banking restrictions, limit the flow of technology to Russia’s defense industry, and clamp down on sanctions evasion.
- Germany’s armed forces are in a worse place than they were last year, Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said in an interview with The Washington Post, despite boasting a huge boost in defense spending after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Germany is not the only one: Other allies who have supplied Ukraine’s military, including the United States, have expressed concerns about decreasing stock of defense supplies.
- Israel’s foreign minister arrived in Kyiv on Thursday in the first visit by an Israeli minister since the war began. Eli Cohen tweeted that he would meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and reopen the Israeli Embassy on his trip. Israel has provided humanitarian support to Ukraine but it has not provided Kyiv with intelligence or weapons.
- Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has said his country will join Russia’s war only if Ukraine attacks Belarus. “I am ready to fight together with the Russians from the territory of Belarus only in one case so far: if a single soldier comes from there to the territory of Belarus to kill my people,” he said Thursday. “If they commit aggression against Belarus, the answer will be the cruelest.”
- Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin was in Estonia on Thursday to meet with the country’s defense minister. Estonia, a Baltic nation of just 1.3 million people, has given the most government support to Ukraine as a percentage of its GDP. “You’ve made hard decisions to give Ukrainians the assistance that they need to defend themselves,” Austin said at a joint press conference with Defense Minister Hanno Pekvur. “Estonia’s leadership reminds us that even small countries can make a big difference.”
- The United States will provide the Czech Republic with $200 million for military upgrades and to help replace equipment the country has provided to Ukraine, the U.S. Embassy announced Thursday. According to Czech news agency CTK, the package comes in addition to the $106 million Washington pledged last year.
- An estimated 1.1 million Ukrainians arrived in Germany last year, the German federal statistics officeannounced Thursday. Even after the return of 139,000 people to Ukraine, the figure still surpassed the number of Syrian, Afghan and Iraqi nationals who arrived in Germany between 2014 and 2016, at the height of the European migrant crisis, the office said.
- More than 200 Russian and Ukrainian servicemen were freed Thursday as part of a prisoner exchange between the two sides. Russia released 101 Ukrainians, including a local government official, Zelensky said on Telegram. Ukraine released 101 Russian servicemen, Russia’s Defense Ministry said in a statement.
- Russian shelling in Bakhmut on Thursday killed five civilians and injured nine more, the office of Ukraine’s prosecutor general said. The statement said Russian forces used tube artillery and a Grad multiple rocket launcher system to target civilian areas of the city and that an investigation was launched to determine whether Russia violated the laws of war.
- Russian forces struck critical infrastructure in Lviv, the region’s military head said on Telegram, but no casualtieswere reported. Maksym Kozyskyi, the chief of Lviv’s military administration, had earlier asked citizens to shelter in place as air raid sirens were triggered.
- Russia has lost about half of its prewar fleet of modern battle tanks in the Ukraine conflict and is instead turning to stocks of older vehicles, according to an annual audit of the world’s military resources by the International Institute for Strategic Studies. Across Eastern Europe, the war is driving Cold War-era models out of storage, the think tank added….