The NY Times continues to print reports from their reporters embedded with Ukraine combat units….
The reports point to a smarter fighting Russian military that IS ceding territory to the Ukraine forces that are grinding things out without a lot of Western modern combat equipment….
The picture is of combat more related to WWI than the 21st Century…..
The Russian economy IS taking a beatdown from the war spending and sanctions….
Drone wars continue…..
President Biden, who has dealt with the Ukraine from back when he was Obama’s Vice President has the task to selling the idea that despite the McCarthy/Gaetz fight?
America will come together and continue to supply aid to the Ukraine….
This has implication’s for other countries sending aid to the Ukraine and plays into Putin’s goal of using drafted conscripts to prolong the conflict with the hope that the West and America in particular will grow tired and force Ukraine President Zelensky to give up the fight and let Putin keep what he has stolen in broad daylight….
European leader’s now are pledging about $5 Billion in aid for the Ukraine…..
Biden hopes to get a stand alone aid bill approved when the dust dies down in the US House…He will probably have to accept some sort US/Mexican border policy change to get the Ukraine money…
Oh, Kevin McCarthy ain’t the Speaker anymore….We’ll see how Ukraine aid thing goes in US House going forward….
Biden is well aware that America has did NOT react to Putin’s inch by foot grab of pieces of the Ukraine which worries other East European countries in close proximity to Russia….
Russia says it doesn’t need to draft tens of thousand’s more men?
Ukraine President is still begging for a EU with Ukraine in it….This WILL be a sore point with getting a end game settlement with Putin, who district’s the West and is STRONGLY against the Ukraine joining the EU and NATO which would effectively lock Russia out of regaining more Ukraine territory in the future….
Ukraine and Poland aren’t happy with each other over Ukraine grain driving down Polish grain prices….
The goal is to prevent Ukrainian troops from actually securing a position and using it as a base for further advances. That is what Ukraine was able to do successfully in the village of Robotyne in the south, its biggest breakthrough in recent weeks.
“The defender gives ground while inflicting as heavy casualties as they can on the attackers with a view to being able to set the attackers up for a decisive counterattack,” said Ben Barry, a senior fellow for land war studies at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a British research group.
This tactic is just one of several factors that have impeded more rapid progress, according to Ukrainian officials and military experts. They also cite Moscow’s use of dense minefields, networks of trenches and tank barriers, and the reluctance of the country’s NATO allies to supply advanced fighter jets and longer-range weapons sooner in the war.
Perhaps the most formidable problem for Ukraine is Russia’s large stockpiles of artillery, which have been deployed throughout the conflict and not least to repel the counteroffensive that began in June….
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Moscow appeared to have begun to deploy elite airborne units to its defense in the Zaporizhzhia region, according to Mr. Melnyk, suggesting that its supply of regular reserves could be running thin — a development that Mr. Melnyk said would be “encouraging news” for Ukraine.
Michael Kofman, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said that if Moscow’s forces begin to retreat more than a few hundred yards at a time, and Ukrainian troops, particularly mechanized units, are able to build up enough momentum to advance in significant numbers, it would be a sign that Russia’s defensive strategy was beginning to falter.
“One of the biggest things that remains in question is whether or not the Ukrainian military will be able to achieve a breakthrough,”….
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“A lapse in support will make Putin believe he can wait us out, and that he can continue the conflict,” Biden said, according to Kirby. “A strong signal of support now and into the next year will make it clear to Putin that he’s wrong.”
Here’s the latest on the war and its impact across the globe.
On Monday, Foreign ministers of several European Union nations gathered in Kyiv in a meeting that culminated with the E.U. proposing up to 5 billion euros, or about $5.2 billion, in additional aid to Ukraine. It was a stark contrast from recent developments in Washington, where Congress over the weekend passed a short-term funding bill stripped of additional aid for Ukraine to avert a government shutdown. Opposition to U.S. support for Ukraine has grown among far-right Republican lawmakers and some Republican presidential hopefuls, including former president Donald Trump.
Biden has “every expectation” that House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) will “keep his public commitment to secure the passage of the support needed to help Ukraine at this critical moment,” Kirby said Tuesday. Later Tuesday, a faction of hard-right Republicans in the House of Representatives ousted McCarthy as speaker over his agreement Friday to a bipartisan deal to avert a government shutdown.
Barring additional funding, the Pentagon has just a few months of support funding left for Ukraine at current spending rates, though the time frame depends in part on battlefield developments, according to Kirby. Since the war began in February 2021, Washington has pledged more than $46 billion in military, humanitarian and financial assistance to Ukraine. “The Pentagon still has several billion dollars in unexpired … drawdown authority,” Kirby said, “but absent additional funding by Congress, eventually you run into a hard stop.”
Russia has no plans to mobilize more troops in Ukraine, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said Tuesday. “The General Staff is not planning additional mobilization. The Armed Forces have the necessary number of troops for the special military operation,” Shoigu said, using Russia’s term for the war in Ukraine. Russia’s “partial mobilization” last year triggered a mass exodus of fighting-age men, with hundreds of thousands fleeing the country, The Washington Post reported at the time
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky spoke Monday with multiple E.U. foreign ministers about Ukraine’s hopes to join the European Union. “We will implement all recommendations,” Zelensky said, according to an account from the Ukrainian president’s office, referring to seven recommendations that Ukraine received for the start of negotiations for E.U. membership. In his nightly address, Zelensky called Ukraine “a leader in protecting the very foundations on which European unity rests.”
At least two people were killed and seven others were injured in attacks on the region of Kherson, its governor, Oleksandr Prokudin, said on Telegram on Tuesday. He said the strikes targeted populated residential areas and educational institutions, among others.
The city of Kharkiv is planning to build Ukraine’s first underground school to protect against missile threats, Mayor Ihor Terekhov said on Telegram. The northeastern Ukrainian city has already put together 60 classrooms inside its subway stations ahead of the school year, Terekhov said, allowing more than 1,000 children to continue their studies underground.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba expressed confidence that U.S. lawmakers will support Kyiv’s war effort despite the lack of aid in the U.S. government’s latest short-term funding bill. “We are now working with both sides of the Congress to make sure that it does not repeat again,” he said. McCarthy and Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) were among the Republican leaders who signaled during television interviews that more aid is in the pipeline.
Mexico’s president called U.S. financial aid to Ukraine “irrational.” In a news conference, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador urged Washington to send resources to help with the economic development
Poland’s foreign minister said he did not attend the E.U. meeting in Kyiv in part because of a decline in economic relations between Poland and Ukraine. In an interview with Polish media, Zbigniew Rau explained his absence at the E.U. summit of his counterparts in Kyiv this week, also citing personal ill health. Diplomatic relations between neighboring Poland and Ukraine have frayed in recent weeks over grain exports and visa rights.
E.U. diplomats rallied in Kyiv, but cracks are growing in the West’s support of Ukraine: While in Kyiv this week, Europe’s top diplomats were all too aware of the wrangling and bickering in Washington, where a U.S. government shutdown was temporarily avoided after a deal between Democratic and Republican lawmakers stripped out a new tranche of funding for Ukraine’s war effort…..
The name of the country is “Ukraine.” It is not “The Ukraine.”
Putin wants you to call it “The Ukraine” because he thinks that demonstrates that is is part of Russia (as it was part of the USSR) and not a free, proud, independent, sovereign nation.
I notice sometimes the name of the country is correct in the blue comments, but sometimes not. Small steps are good but one should try to be correct each time.
Calling it “The Ukraine” is considered a deliberate insult to Ukrainians. Should be simple to adjust in one’s mind.
I do try to write how Ukraine wants it….
I’m reading my second book on the tig of war between Russia and Kyiv that has been going on for centuries……
And Entertainer turned President and the slight of hand by an ex-KGB guy and his buddies….
And a history of a country that changes like the weather
Very interesting