28 civilians died from Ukrainian airstrike on Donbass today. This had been going on for 9 years now. Donbass is not being protected sunce the war started, instead, Belgorod is being bombed now and a few died there.
Yet Ukrainian leadership visits places like Kherson and Avdeevka, walks the streets in the open and leaves unharmed, there are no strikes on them. No strikes on important government agencies and objects in Ukraine.
Pipelines keep pumping right through Ukraine, unharmed, materials for Ukrainian fuels keep coming from Russia. There appear to be agreements in place. NATO weapons deliveries proceed unhindered since 2022. Shall I not say more. Very strange war.
The Druzhba pipeline, running through ukraine, delivers oil to Hungary (and is planned to extend into Serbia) - is not only an important revenue stream for Russia, but also an instrument of foreign policy.So, most of your observations are easily explained, however, the situation with fuels is indeed revealing. It appears both EU and Russia are still co-dependent on each other to some degree, hence why the gas pipeline running through Ukraine continues to operate. They shut that off and energy prices will explode. Conversely, Russia is probably making record profits on their gas sold to the EU due to shortages caused by the Nordstream bombing, which means Russia would be looking at a massive deficit should they stop selling natural gas. So neither side is able or willing to turn off the gas completely, which is quite remarkable given the levels of violence in this war. It's proof that self-interest can be a strange thing.
"We've always been at war with Eastasia." - George Orwell, "1984"
This quote exemplifies the manipulation of historical records and the constant rewriting of the past to fit the current narrative. The enemy, whether it's Eurasia or Eastasia, is portrayed as an eternal foe to justify the oppressive policies of the ruling party. The fluidity of alliances and enemies serves the purpose of keeping the population in a perpetual state of confusion and fear.
Ukraine more and more actively recruits women, there are entire units consisting of women fighting now and they raised contract ceiling to 60 years old.
Ad promising women weight loss for serving in Ukrainian army, a woman lost 40lbs since signing up
Telegram commentary says if you step on a landmine you surely are guaranteed quick weight loss
Looks like the Ukraine shot 3 German or US missiles that took down a Russian plane carrying a load of Ukrainian POWs, who were going to be traded back for Russian ones.
“This is a Nazi regime, nurtured by [US President Joe] Biden, [French President Emmanuel] Macron, [German Chancellor Olaf] Scholz… they must understand their responsibility,” he added, urging Western legislators to impeach the aforementioned leaders.
Some Ukie sources are claiming that the cargo plane shot down was carrying S-300 missiles, not POWs. Not sure how trustworthy these sources are...
I think that America's attention (and resources) had shifted to other areas: MENA and Taiwan. Project ukraine has failed to deliver and is getting dumped on the Europeans, which are beginning to realize that soon they will left alone with an angry bear.Does anybody else think that the Biden administration might push for all out war with Russia, given they have potentially less than a year to do so?
All this talk of war with Russia is pretty disturbing, to be honest. Just this last week there has been talk of conscription in the UK, for example. I cannot help but think TPTB are preparing the public for what is planned.
Don't see any breakthroughs and rapid advancements anytime soon. First of all Russia is currently focused on draining ukrainian resources and preventing them from building reserves - they keep applying pressure all along the front and forcing ukrainians to constantly dispatch new troops to plug the holes. Second, it's objectively difficult to launch an offensive: dominant role of the reconnaissance-strike complex (drone + artillery combo), density of engineering obstacles and proliferation of cheap precision munitions (commercial FPV drones jerry rigged with explosives) make any attempt to advance very costly if not downright impossible. The failure of last year's ukrainian counteroffensive is an example of what can happen to troops leaving the protective umbrella of their own positions. I do not expect that Russians will take such risks anytime soon, not with Russian presidential elections just around the corner. That being said, I think that later, in the second half of this year, Russians will try to break this gridlock.@TruckDriver9 - thank you for the updates, which I always appreciate. As someone who clearly follows the was closely, are you seeing rapid Russian gains? Slow progress, but nonetheless progress? Or is it something of a stalemate?