Who control’s the wastlend of Bakhmut?
Ukraine President will add Poland to the list of cxountries he CAN visits and Putin cannot…..
Finland to join NATO in days….
Sweden left standing by Turkey’s leader….
A battle for the Crimea?…
More US military aid for the Ukraine….
A look at the training of the second wave of Ukraine combat troops gertting ready for the Ukrain’s Spring offensive……
The timing is critical. Success for Ukraine in the battles on the southeastern plains would drive home to the world the declining military might of Russia, ease concerns that the war has settled into a quagmire and most likely encourage Ukraine’s allies to further arm and finance Kyiv in the war.
Western support has been solid so far but is not guaranteed. The U.S. budget for military assistance, for example, is now expected to run out by around September, and a senior American defense official recently described the latest tranche of artillery rounds and rockets sent to Ukraine as a “last-ditch effort.”
“The key point in the eyes of Washington elites — and Washington elites are the judge and jury on this — is that Ukraine has to be seen as having gained significant land in the coming offensive,” Cliff Kupchan, chairman of the Eurasia Group, a political risk assessment firm in Washington, said in an interview.
The challenges are daunting.
Ukrainian officers will have to choreograph artillery, infantry and armored vehicle assaults that crash through Russian trenches, tank traps and minefields. In the south, Russian units have been building defensive positions since they were pushed out of the Kherson region in November. Sophisticated Western tanks, with better survivability and firepower, will be critical in uprooting those positions….
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In the counteroffensive, Ukraine is likely to launch intensive artillery bombardments along a narrow stretch of frontline, military analysts say, followed by demining teams and tank assaults.
Ukraine is widely expected to strike in the south, where the terrain ranges from wide-open farm fields, with only sparse tree lines for cover, to towns and villages. A thrust of about 50 miles over the steppe from the current front lines to the Russian-occupied city of Melitopol would split Russian-held territory into two zones, sever supply lines and put Ukrainian artillery within range of Russian bases on the Crimean Peninsula.
Preparing new recruits to replace dead, wounded and exhausted soldiers has been taking place for months. Tens of thousands of new recruits have undergone training in Europe and inside Ukraine, including in newly formed Offensive Guard units. About 35,000 Ukrainians have signed up for the assault units….
The Ukraine Spring Offensive may try to retake the Crimea, which Russia took over in 2014….
The future of Crimea is a fraught subject. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has pledged to return it to his country’s control, but Russian President Vladimir Putin has vowed never to give it up.
The region’s geography presents major difficulties for both Ukraine and Russia. Crimea is connected to mainland Ukraine by a narrow, swampy passage of land that could stall an offensive. But its proximity to the front could also prove dangerous for Russia’s occupation, isolating its forces and putting them in easy reach of Ukrainian weapons.
Though Russia has built defenses elsewhere, the scale in Crimea stands out. “For Putin, Crimea is just a sacred cow,” Matveev said. “If something happens, troops will be immediately sent to this line of defense.”
Satellite imagery reveals that many of Russia’s defenses were built along bodies of water, adding an extra obstacle against a potential Ukrainian ground offensive….
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Crimea has been fought over for centuries because of its strategic location. For Russia, it provides a year-round base for its Black Sea Fleet. Its beaches also make it a popular vacation destination, although the war has intruded.
During the Crimean War in the 1850s, Russia fought an alliance of European powers. Historians describe that conflict, which made widespread use of trench warfare, as a precursor to World War I. It also proved that Crimea, once considered a natural fortress, was vulnerable to modern seaborne attacks.
But Ukraine’s navy is weak. It also lacks the air power to dominate the peninsula from above. A traditional ground assault would have to come via a far more difficult path.
Obstacles have been placed along key roads that connect Crimea to mainland Ukraine….
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Finland is set to join NATO as its 31st member on Tuesday, the military alliance’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, announced. A flag-raising ceremony in Brussels will mark the culmination of Helsinki’s repeatedly delayed path to membership, which was finally approved last week when Turkey’s parliament voted to support its bid. Sweden — which applied to join at the same time — has not yet secured the approval of Hungary and Turkey, holdouts that have blocked the required unanimity for admitting new alliance members.
Here’s the latest on the war and its ripple effects across the globe.
- The number of people injured in the St. Petersburg explosion climbed to 32, Russian state media reported Monday. Russian authorities previously said they were investigating Fomin’s death as a murder.
- Russian officials are taking “energetic steps” in their investigation of the blast, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Monday. “The Ukrainian special services may have something to do with the planning of this,” he added, without providing any evidence to substantiate the accusation. Russia’s National Antiterrorism Committee blamed the attack on opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation, also without providing evidence.
- More than one vessel might have been involved in sabotaging the Nord Stream pipeline last year, according to Western officials. Earlier this year, German officials had zeroed in on a rented sailboat in their investigation, but some now believe the 50-foot yacht, the Andromeda, was probably not the only vessel used in the audacious attack and may have even been a decoy, they told The Washington Post. The attack disabled Nord Stream 1 and part of Nord Stream 2, two undersea pipelines that carried Russian natural gas to Europe.
- The Biden administration is preparing another arms package for Ukraine to be announced this week, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters. He indicated that the bulk of the package would include “the kinds of ammunition they need as they prepare for what we expect to be…vicious fighting in the weeks and months ahead” as Ukraine’s weather improves.
- Former secretary of state Mike Pompeo visited Kyiv, where he met with Zelensky on Monday and emphasized U.S. support for the country. After meeting with a delegation of Republican congressmen who traveled to Ukraine, led by Rep. Michael Turner (Ohio), Zelensky in his nightly address thanked “America for its consistently powerful help, from President Biden and the White House team to both houses of Congress and the entire system of American power.”
- Moscow’s forces made creeping advances in Bakhmut,the besieged city in the eastern Donetsk region that Ukraine has defended against waves of Russian attacks for months. Fighters from the Wagner mercenary group hoisted a Russian flag over the city administration building overnight, according to the group’s leader, Yevgeniy Prigozhin — an account confirmed by a Ukrainian soldier involved in Bakhmut’s defense. Ukraine maintained that the move signified no change in the status of the western part of city, where Ukrainian forces continue to hold territory. The city “hasn’t fallen to the Russians,” Kirby told reporters Monday.
- Ukraine’s military downplayed the symbolic significance of the Bakhmut administration building’s capture. “Occupying part of a building or a small block is not the same as a successful tactical operation, not to mention a strategic one,” Serhii Cherevatyi, a Ukrainian military spokesman for the eastern front, told The Post on Monday….