Those lofty views that Ukraine troops trained and equiped with American and NATO stuff has NOT turned out the way everybody thought it would…
The Russian’s KEEP sending missles after Ukraine grain supplies…..
Russian’s in Moscow have missile’s being shot at them….
Turkey’s leader wants garin exports restarted (I’m sure Turkey gets a cut on it)
The Ukraine is probing a draft evasion situation’s….
The first several weeks of Ukraine’s long-awaited counteroffensive have not been kind to the Ukrainian troops who were trained and armed by the United States and its allies.
Equipped with advanced American weapons and heralded as the vanguard of a major assault, the troops became bogged down in dense Russian minefields under constant fire from artillery and helicopter gunships. Units got lost. One unit delayed a nighttime attack until dawn, losing its advantage. Another fared so badly that commanders yanked it off the battlefield altogether.
Now the Western-trained Ukrainian brigades are trying to turn things around, U.S. officials and independent analysts say. Ukrainian military commanders have changed tactics, focusing on wearing down the Russian forces with artillery and long-range missiles instead of plunging into minefields under fire. A troop surge is underway in the country’s south, with a second wave of Western-trained forces launching mostly small-scale attacks to punch through Russian lines….
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In the first two weeks of the counteroffensive, as much as 20 percent of the weaponry Ukraine sent to the battlefield was damaged or destroyed, according to U.S. and European officials. The toll included some of the formidable Western fighting machines — tanks and armored personnel carriers — that the Ukrainians were counting on to beat back the Russians.
Military experts said that using newly learned tactics for the first time was always going to be hard, especially given that the Russian response was to assume a defensive crouch and fire massive barrages of artillery.
“They were given a tall order,” said Rob Lee, a Russian military specialist at the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Philadelphia and a former U.S. Marine officer, who has also traveled to the front lines. “They had a short amount of time to train on new equipment and to develop unit cohesion, and then they were thrown into one of the most difficult combat situations. They were put in an incredibly tough position.”…..
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Moscow hit Izmail, one of the small ports on the Danube River that are the only outlets for exporting grain by sea since Russia pulled out of the Black Sea deal.
Here’s what we’re covering:
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Russian drones strike a Danube River port, damaging Ukrainian grain awaiting export, officials say.
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An administrative building is damaged in a drone attack on Kyiv.
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Putin speaks with Erdogan, who urges a resumption of the Black Sea grain deal.
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Danube River ports have become crucial for Ukrainian exports.
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In Moscow, some residents worry after recent attacks while others move on…..
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Ukraine’s counteroffensive against Russia is moving forward, the Pentagon’s spokesman said in response to media questions about whether Ukraine has made significant gains. “It has and will continue to be a tough fight for them,” Air Force Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder told reporters.
Here’s the latest on the war and its ripple effects across the globe.
The U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Bridget Brink, said the strikes against port infrastructure demonstrated Russia’s disregard for civilians. “Russia has no desire for peace, no thought for civilian safety, and no regard for people around the world who rely on food from Ukraine,” she tweeted Wednesday. The Ukrainian air force said it shot down 23 Iranian-made drones launched by Russia from several directions overnight.