Hello everybody! Another ‘shorty’ for today, in between of (if anybody is interested in ‘details’ of professional life of a military analyst & historian) finishing a certain book and drawing illustrations for it. Bakhmut… Yes, fighting in the Bakhmut area is, definitely, ‘back’ – primarily because the Russians have realised that, if they do not resume their (costly) counterattacks, Ukrainians are free to advance north and east of the railway line south of the town. Indeed, in such case, the VSRF will have no time to mine and construct a line of fortifications along the highway from Bakhmut via Opytne to Odradivka and further south. This might be urgently necessary considering the activity of the ZSU artillery in this area: reportedly, this knocked out some 20+ Russian artillery pieces, south east of Bakhmut, the last 24 hours alone. Moreover, because of the Russian restraint, the last few days the 28
Oct 3, 2023·edited Oct 3, 2023Liked by Sarcastosaurus
There are too many Europeans who are afraid even of their own shadow, they just want to lie quietly on the sofa waiting for the end of their days, hoping that wars and other big problems will come after they are dead. I don't think they are the majority, but there are many, many enough to be decisive in elections. Dictatorships don't have these problems. And there are countries like mine, Italy, where millions of people would like Russia to overpower Ukraine.
In Italy, a significant part of the population is anti-Western (whatever that means) and sees Russia as something that fights on their side. But there are many more people who have no position, who are simply against any support that involves a minimum of sacrifice. We in Italy do not take a long-term view of things, and whatever the problem may be, the important thing is that it does not become a problem in our lifetime. Of course, this is only a hope as long as we think it unlikely that the worst will happen.
Italy was liberated by the West, and not by Russia. Without the West, maybe Italians would have experimented more fascism, or communism. None of these would have been better...
Because Russia is against the Western bloc, it does not matter if Russia is also an invading country, for some Italians, this war is a West Vs East war. But I would like to point out that the Italians who support this view are not very many, but I cannot say that they are very few either. But most Italians do not have a political opinion, on the contrary, they hate Russia for what it has done, but if opposing Russia has a cost, then they are not willing to pay it. I'll give an example to make it clearer: the majority of Italians would like Russian gas again, even if Ukraine no longer existed, because they don't believe that this - in the long run - could be a danger to Italy. Even being seen as 'weak' by the Chinese bloc is not seen as a problem. Of course I do not agree with this view, but in Italy I belong to a minority.
There is a big difference between the opinion of individual people in the EU, the attitude of individual EU countries and the EU as a whole. I don't think the support will stop. Not from the EU, not from the UK, France, Germany, the Baltic states or Poland, and not from the US. And that is what counts in the end.
I live in Italy. I have a lot of friends. In my 'world' not one person supports Russia and everyone I speak to is happy to pay a little to support Ukraine. Countries are not uniform. Slava Ukraina
They didn't lie, but nothing is quick with the EU. This is it. And EU has of course flaws, but don't expect something perfect. Just perfectible. In my opinion, the advantages overcome the flaws. And also at political level there are many things that are not told and we don't know. What is awful is that so many lives are lost until decisions are made. But we should stick on the same side (at least most of us).
This is kind of terrible. Also here (Romania) people do not want to go to fight, or they are afraid of nuclear war, and some say that we should be friends with both the West and Russia. But in the end most of them realize that it would be very bad if Ukraine no longer existed. And I am not sure that Italy is so safe in the long run. I think for the middle (buffer) countries to be safe, both the West and East must fail, which is impossible. Therefore the side you chose defines your history.
I am Italian too and I know many Italians in the high class (good/high profession, rich house and holidays) who hate the western democracies where they lived very well. It's a no sense, but because of this they love post communist dictatorships. They could never live there but they love. No sense but true.
And they hate Ukrainians because they prefer to die instead of surrending to those wonderful dictatorships.
The 'strongman attraction' is quite powerful here in Greece as well. A large part of the population does want also to be left alone, and thinks that "Ukraine is too far to matter" etc.
A little cynical view, but I can understand it. Not sure the Europeans are radically different from other countries that are stable and prosperous, If there a no realistic upsides and lot of clear downsides, why take risks? Why change? I think Us is equally risk averse. Dictatorship doesnt have this problems, true, they have others. Cronyism, inneffectiveness, corruption, power struggles...
Yes, I am the first to be cynical. There are and have been wars all over the world, but I was not interested in them. But in Ukraine it's different, what happens in Ukraine has an impact here in Europe and in the West, it will have an impact with China, which watches what we do and measures our strength. If China sees us as weak, it will be the next dictatorship trying to expand at our expense. The point is that many in the West do not see this connection, or believe/hope that the nefarious effects will come so late that they will already be dead.
Do you remember when, during covid-19, we let russian army to travel through our highways and to access to very delicate data infos (like personal data of patients), all reimbursed by our government, at the same time pretending to publicly declare all of that was a gift from Russia?
Hmm, so it seems that ZSU is short of artillery ... if they need it from time to time somewhere else.
But I still get the feeling that in the last several reports you overestimate a bit the losses of the Russians - that unit being mauled, the other too. If you look at the numbers that ZSU reports, the numbers of KIA have collapsed and rarely go over 400 these days. It is apparent that they are holding their lines too well. If I see “unfortunately”, it will mean that ZSU doesn’t have luck in this situation while the bitter truth is that they are quite undersupplied with everything that comes to mind- artillery, tanks, not to say planes, choppers, anti-aircraft ....
I have wondered about the reported casualties vs. the reporting of the elimination of a regiment, brigade, etc. Example from this post: " ...exterminate most of the 57th MRB..." If Russian units are staffed at 50% of "expected" numbers a brigade there would be 1,000-4,000 soldiers (https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/russia/army-ue-echelons.htm). If they are administrative heavy, maybe 40%(wild guess) would be fighting, so call it 400. Of those perhaps 75% are active (another clueless guess), so a total of 300 soldiers in the battle at any given time?
When a 'brigade' (by its designation) goes into a battle with around 1500-1700 troops and, two weeks later, less than 200 are still 'combat capable'.... and/or, when out of 7-8 'regiments' in the line, there's none left with more than 50-60 toops....well, perhaps that's no 'extermination' after all, and the figures I happen to know are all fake news...
EDIT: BTW, do I understand it correctly (and since you and Randy are asking about '400 Russian KIA these days'): you're all 'hanging' on 'official Russian casualty figures' as released by Kyiv?
Because, Kyiv simply can't know real figures - if even the Russians do not know them.
....and the army-HQs of the VSRF usually need 7-10 days to 'update' the status of different of their units. I.e. they never know how many troops their units actually have, 'right now'.
Thanks Tom, for squeeze this update between your daily work (I’m wondered about how you may do that. Please, remember, eat and sleep are strongly advised).
About the Fronts’ situations, the resume for me is: we (the so called “Western”) can’t betray Ukraine, must to support her with all the ammo and weapons available. We must press the ruZZians with every economic and diplomatic measure available as well.
But of course, all my wishes are at odds with putinist BS “info” and, more than that, with our “cosmopoliticians”.
Tom, re Bakhmut why do you think ZSU has more success on the souther side? The geography there is similar to that of Zaporizhiya - I mean mostly plains and open fields. While one (at least me) would expect ZSU to have more success on the hilly Northern side.
I believe there is no strategic aim on the northern side - going any deeper would threaten the Ukrainians to get surrounded (from Kreminna in the north and Soledar in the south). On the other hand, the southern front line is straight and allows to push in for a 10 km to threaten the Russian forces in Bakhmut and Soledar by nearly surrounding them.
Wagner did not dig trenches for 6 mounts, so RF forces were on back-foot without enough good defenses. Sadly with so much time passed, i`m assuming they prepared defense lines after the road, on the high ground like Zaitzeve. The bloody counter-attacks indeed win a lot of time and it don`t seem like RF care about the casualties since it have enough reinforcements. It will be hard, until the idiots in the trenches stay there and there is no anti-war protest in the country.
I don’t think ru have enough reinforcements nowadays. Ru mil bloggers are crying that Pudding and his team are doing stupid things ( who may have guessed!) by not running big-time second wave of mobilization to relive professional soldiers and first-wave “mobiki” (some of those stuck at front for 10+ months now). Also they are complaining about shortage of soldiers in general.
But Pudding and co are hesitant to run second wave, big style, as the first one was super challenging, a lot of major cities failed their quotas, a lot of civil authorities silently sabotaged mobilization; furthermore, most gullible and naive people were already mobilized back in 2022, hence any new big time mobilization will likely be more challenging. Additionally, there is a presidential “elections” in March/2024. While not a real elections, civil ru authorities will invest a lot of effort to put up a spectacle and keep things calm, so everyone do their part in forcing civil servants, teachers and doctors to vote, faking results in each district, ensuring that there would be no Minsk-2020 style protest, etc. Hence no big mobilization before or during that process.
It saddens me to realize how weak the West is now. I am sad to see how Europeans do not understand the significance of this war, it is sad that dubious political forces are winning in European countries, which will control the masses with populism and propaganda, as in Hungary and Turkey. Apparently the Europeans are tired of the West, and they want to live in the East, the realization will come to them when nothing can be changed, and they will all live with the Stockholm syndrome.... Unfortunately, modern youth have little interest in politics; it’s much more interesting to scroll through YouTube shorts and TIkTok. If the trend does not change, and I have little doubt about it, they will wake up when they are 40-50 years old and realize how much they have lost in the face of that old European Union. If their minds are not completely crushed by propaganda)
I strongly disagree with your perception of an unpolitical youth. We have the most political active youth since decades, it's the apolitical generations before them, who either ignore them or supress them and let this all happen. Take "Fridays for Future" for example: First politicians wanted to forbid the demonstrations, then they simply decided to ignore them. And now, after 3 years of flat out ignorance by politicians, everybody is flabbergasted why people started to glue themselves to crossraods and on highways...
This inability to comprehend the absolute necessity for change by the governing politicians, combined with widely infected corruption by Putins system (which manifests itself in generations of european top politicians ending up in the managements of russian energy enterprises), explains the complete paralysis of Europe, not only in the question of Ukraine.
FFF does not give a damn about democracy elsewhere than their circle where they want to do whatever they want to do. It is one of their agendas to change the political system. Mostly conform to "communist and socialist ideas". There has been absolute NO mobilization for Ukraine, for democracy and for liberty. They do not give a thought about China either/. They are suipporting regimes like that. --- This movement is often antisemitic and anti-Israel while running around in the streets of Berlin or Munich but they are incapable of recognizing a terror-regime like Russia, understanding the implications of its disinformation ; they did not give a damn about the explosion of the damn but went to demonstrate next to a RWE installation for the 50s time. Thery arer a despicable crowd of youngsters without any vision and it is not certain whether they are able to diffentiate a democratic state from a totalitarian one. --- There have been movements of young people for freedom and democracy in the GDR, in Poland, in Czechoslovakia who created a free space and values around environmental subjects. There was a youth who took up arms in the French résistance. --- Today, especially in Germany values like freedom, democracy, distribution of power, human rights in the Russian Federation is very far from these youngsters.
Fridays for Future does not want to change the political system. It wants to enforce political action, after yearly, worldwide governmental agreed upon, ever more ambitious climate goals (which we are failing miserably btw). And it does so by the most basic democratic means like strikes and demonstrations and is one of the biggest political global youth movements in decades.
Anything else you try to pin on them is not worth commenting.
Anyways I used them as an example why the painted picture of a tic-toc watching youth with no political interest is not a reality.
Of course it does or you have never been present in the circles where it is discussed. have you ever marched with them ? Have you ever discussed with leading members of FFF in Germany what they think about China ? Have you ever tried to convince them into action regarding Russia ? --- They do not give a damn about democracy. --- They could have reinvented themselves when Russia invaded Ukraine for the third time. But they did not want to. --- Antisemitism. If you look at the language these guys use, you can see very well their antisemitic approach. They try to evoke the memory of the Shoah : Climate Denier, climate catastrophy is ungraspable like the holocaust, the Holocaust as "like a regular event" in history. All of this is real. ... But by now FFF at least in Germany is already looking old and semlls dead.
That's a bit of an absurd take. I'm a bit tired of lazy journos creating this kind of narrative. Read more about Slovakia's political disfunction, it has much more complexity than "Russia loving EU hating". There are political divisions in the US and EU but these do not fit into that narrow "decline of the west" narrative. It has more to to with social bubbles and people with different socio-economic circumstances being completely out of touch with each other.
You may as well go back to WW2 and conclude that the USA is full of Hitler sympathizers and is doomed to abandon democracy and cooperate with a new fashist world order.
I dont think they want to live in the East. But they are nostalgic, The world was better before. (When you were younger If you are old). Or when males had undisputed power over women. Or nobody proster against the Church or there was only two genders and so on and so on. It doesnt really matter what the world actually was thirthy years ago. You just need to have an idea of some glorious past and then you can sell it. And far too many buy into this picture that never was, people dont want East, but they dislike society today and opt for some fantasy. But I aplogise, this is disgressing from the main topic of the blog.
Thanks for your reports, they are all very interesting and i lock forward to them. They give a good overview of the situation that not many other reporting on the war can do
Ukraine has significant problems with reconnaissance and a big lack of information about the enemy and its actions in close areas to the frontline. I think the enemy makes the same mistakes like he always does, for instance, russians gained the party in Makiivka on 31 December. Killing 400 mobics at one moment helps much more than new tactics on the battlefield. Unfortunately, the ukrainian military intelligence and their NATO colleagues work not so perfect like they should do.
Bushfires are not that bad here - the dry grass burns out quickly. One can usually extinguish the burning grass with one's boots. However, they may smoke out hiding soldiers that would then be targeted by the artillery.
Great write up as always. In all this I really hope Ukraine, Sweden, the Baltics, Finland, Poland and the UK make efforts to manufacture weapons for Ukraine. Cant rely on the US really. Trump could make a comeback or some other Republican weirdo and Democratic Natsec teams are either lenient to Russia or totally inept.
Thanks for the update. My overall reading of this is that Russia now is back to counterattack because the alternative is actually worse. Loss of initiative is bad, Even If counterattack is the only initiative. On the other hand the counter attacks are costly. So we will likely see a rise in Russian causualities. Bite and hold strategy still seems logical, and the only way to go.
Hi Tom. Thanks for your job because your reports always are alternative point of view on this war. Last time I've seen in some Ukrainian Telegram channels an idea that offensive on Donetsk and Gorlivka would be better option than storming Russians on Robotyne front. Your thoughts?
There are too many Europeans who are afraid even of their own shadow, they just want to lie quietly on the sofa waiting for the end of their days, hoping that wars and other big problems will come after they are dead. I don't think they are the majority, but there are many, many enough to be decisive in elections. Dictatorships don't have these problems. And there are countries like mine, Italy, where millions of people would like Russia to overpower Ukraine.
Why is that in Italy? Old tired Mussolini fascists?
In Italy, a significant part of the population is anti-Western (whatever that means) and sees Russia as something that fights on their side. But there are many more people who have no position, who are simply against any support that involves a minimum of sacrifice. We in Italy do not take a long-term view of things, and whatever the problem may be, the important thing is that it does not become a problem in our lifetime. Of course, this is only a hope as long as we think it unlikely that the worst will happen.
Italy was liberated by the West, and not by Russia. Without the West, maybe Italians would have experimented more fascism, or communism. None of these would have been better...
Many Ukrainians were such before the full-scale war.
I guess Italians have always been laid back, with a few very notable exceptions. But why would they like Russia to win? It seems illogical.
Because Russia is against the Western bloc, it does not matter if Russia is also an invading country, for some Italians, this war is a West Vs East war. But I would like to point out that the Italians who support this view are not very many, but I cannot say that they are very few either. But most Italians do not have a political opinion, on the contrary, they hate Russia for what it has done, but if opposing Russia has a cost, then they are not willing to pay it. I'll give an example to make it clearer: the majority of Italians would like Russian gas again, even if Ukraine no longer existed, because they don't believe that this - in the long run - could be a danger to Italy. Even being seen as 'weak' by the Chinese bloc is not seen as a problem. Of course I do not agree with this view, but in Italy I belong to a minority.
In this case Ukrainians were lied by EU: they expected to have full support and quick win.
So EU does not help, at the same time, on words it is always nice "we will support you, rely on us. "
But when real fight starts, they still "yes, we will support" . So at each point of time Ukrainians are lied and expected support
You are wrong.
There is a big difference between the opinion of individual people in the EU, the attitude of individual EU countries and the EU as a whole. I don't think the support will stop. Not from the EU, not from the UK, France, Germany, the Baltic states or Poland, and not from the US. And that is what counts in the end.
I live in Italy. I have a lot of friends. In my 'world' not one person supports Russia and everyone I speak to is happy to pay a little to support Ukraine. Countries are not uniform. Slava Ukraina
They didn't lie, but nothing is quick with the EU. This is it. And EU has of course flaws, but don't expect something perfect. Just perfectible. In my opinion, the advantages overcome the flaws. And also at political level there are many things that are not told and we don't know. What is awful is that so many lives are lost until decisions are made. But we should stick on the same side (at least most of us).
This is kind of terrible. Also here (Romania) people do not want to go to fight, or they are afraid of nuclear war, and some say that we should be friends with both the West and Russia. But in the end most of them realize that it would be very bad if Ukraine no longer existed. And I am not sure that Italy is so safe in the long run. I think for the middle (buffer) countries to be safe, both the West and East must fail, which is impossible. Therefore the side you chose defines your history.
I am Italian too and I know many Italians in the high class (good/high profession, rich house and holidays) who hate the western democracies where they lived very well. It's a no sense, but because of this they love post communist dictatorships. They could never live there but they love. No sense but true.
And they hate Ukrainians because they prefer to die instead of surrending to those wonderful dictatorships.
The 'strongman attraction' is quite powerful here in Greece as well. A large part of the population does want also to be left alone, and thinks that "Ukraine is too far to matter" etc.
A little cynical view, but I can understand it. Not sure the Europeans are radically different from other countries that are stable and prosperous, If there a no realistic upsides and lot of clear downsides, why take risks? Why change? I think Us is equally risk averse. Dictatorship doesnt have this problems, true, they have others. Cronyism, inneffectiveness, corruption, power struggles...
Yes, I am the first to be cynical. There are and have been wars all over the world, but I was not interested in them. But in Ukraine it's different, what happens in Ukraine has an impact here in Europe and in the West, it will have an impact with China, which watches what we do and measures our strength. If China sees us as weak, it will be the next dictatorship trying to expand at our expense. The point is that many in the West do not see this connection, or believe/hope that the nefarious effects will come so late that they will already be dead.
I didnt say you were wrong...
Dear Roby,
Do you remember when, during covid-19, we let russian army to travel through our highways and to access to very delicate data infos (like personal data of patients), all reimbursed by our government, at the same time pretending to publicly declare all of that was a gift from Russia?
Hmm, so it seems that ZSU is short of artillery ... if they need it from time to time somewhere else.
But I still get the feeling that in the last several reports you overestimate a bit the losses of the Russians - that unit being mauled, the other too. If you look at the numbers that ZSU reports, the numbers of KIA have collapsed and rarely go over 400 these days. It is apparent that they are holding their lines too well. If I see “unfortunately”, it will mean that ZSU doesn’t have luck in this situation while the bitter truth is that they are quite undersupplied with everything that comes to mind- artillery, tanks, not to say planes, choppers, anti-aircraft ....
I have wondered about the reported casualties vs. the reporting of the elimination of a regiment, brigade, etc. Example from this post: " ...exterminate most of the 57th MRB..." If Russian units are staffed at 50% of "expected" numbers a brigade there would be 1,000-4,000 soldiers (https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/russia/army-ue-echelons.htm). If they are administrative heavy, maybe 40%(wild guess) would be fighting, so call it 400. Of those perhaps 75% are active (another clueless guess), so a total of 300 soldiers in the battle at any given time?
When a 'brigade' (by its designation) goes into a battle with around 1500-1700 troops and, two weeks later, less than 200 are still 'combat capable'.... and/or, when out of 7-8 'regiments' in the line, there's none left with more than 50-60 toops....well, perhaps that's no 'extermination' after all, and the figures I happen to know are all fake news...
EDIT: BTW, do I understand it correctly (and since you and Randy are asking about '400 Russian KIA these days'): you're all 'hanging' on 'official Russian casualty figures' as released by Kyiv?
....oh dear.... OK, not surprised any more.
Why would Kyiv publish lower numbers than the real ones?
Maybe Kyiv says just confirmed looses and looses behind frontline cannot be counted
Because, Kyiv simply can't know real figures - if even the Russians do not know them.
....and the army-HQs of the VSRF usually need 7-10 days to 'update' the status of different of their units. I.e. they never know how many troops their units actually have, 'right now'.
Would you consider Kyiv official numbers for ruzzian losses somewhere accurate (order of magnitude accurate), or too high or too low?
One week for Kurdyumivka!!! It just says all about the current sorry state of the war...
Nice explanation of attrition warfare https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/9/30/2196246/-Ukraine-Update-Data-shows-Ukraine-is-laying-down-the-heaviest-firestorm-of-artillery-in-the-war
(Posted by someone else before.)
As of this morning, Kurdyumivka was 'largely free of the Russians'.... (shouldn't mean 'liberated' though).
Good news
Thanks Tom, for squeeze this update between your daily work (I’m wondered about how you may do that. Please, remember, eat and sleep are strongly advised).
About the Fronts’ situations, the resume for me is: we (the so called “Western”) can’t betray Ukraine, must to support her with all the ammo and weapons available. We must press the ruZZians with every economic and diplomatic measure available as well.
But of course, all my wishes are at odds with putinist BS “info” and, more than that, with our “cosmopoliticians”.
Tom, re Bakhmut why do you think ZSU has more success on the souther side? The geography there is similar to that of Zaporizhiya - I mean mostly plains and open fields. While one (at least me) would expect ZSU to have more success on the hilly Northern side.
I believe there is no strategic aim on the northern side - going any deeper would threaten the Ukrainians to get surrounded (from Kreminna in the north and Soledar in the south). On the other hand, the southern front line is straight and allows to push in for a 10 km to threaten the Russian forces in Bakhmut and Soledar by nearly surrounding them.
Wagner did not dig trenches for 6 mounts, so RF forces were on back-foot without enough good defenses. Sadly with so much time passed, i`m assuming they prepared defense lines after the road, on the high ground like Zaitzeve. The bloody counter-attacks indeed win a lot of time and it don`t seem like RF care about the casualties since it have enough reinforcements. It will be hard, until the idiots in the trenches stay there and there is no anti-war protest in the country.
I don’t think ru have enough reinforcements nowadays. Ru mil bloggers are crying that Pudding and his team are doing stupid things ( who may have guessed!) by not running big-time second wave of mobilization to relive professional soldiers and first-wave “mobiki” (some of those stuck at front for 10+ months now). Also they are complaining about shortage of soldiers in general.
But Pudding and co are hesitant to run second wave, big style, as the first one was super challenging, a lot of major cities failed their quotas, a lot of civil authorities silently sabotaged mobilization; furthermore, most gullible and naive people were already mobilized back in 2022, hence any new big time mobilization will likely be more challenging. Additionally, there is a presidential “elections” in March/2024. While not a real elections, civil ru authorities will invest a lot of effort to put up a spectacle and keep things calm, so everyone do their part in forcing civil servants, teachers and doctors to vote, faking results in each district, ensuring that there would be no Minsk-2020 style protest, etc. Hence no big mobilization before or during that process.
It saddens me to realize how weak the West is now. I am sad to see how Europeans do not understand the significance of this war, it is sad that dubious political forces are winning in European countries, which will control the masses with populism and propaganda, as in Hungary and Turkey. Apparently the Europeans are tired of the West, and they want to live in the East, the realization will come to them when nothing can be changed, and they will all live with the Stockholm syndrome.... Unfortunately, modern youth have little interest in politics; it’s much more interesting to scroll through YouTube shorts and TIkTok. If the trend does not change, and I have little doubt about it, they will wake up when they are 40-50 years old and realize how much they have lost in the face of that old European Union. If their minds are not completely crushed by propaganda)
I strongly disagree with your perception of an unpolitical youth. We have the most political active youth since decades, it's the apolitical generations before them, who either ignore them or supress them and let this all happen. Take "Fridays for Future" for example: First politicians wanted to forbid the demonstrations, then they simply decided to ignore them. And now, after 3 years of flat out ignorance by politicians, everybody is flabbergasted why people started to glue themselves to crossraods and on highways...
This inability to comprehend the absolute necessity for change by the governing politicians, combined with widely infected corruption by Putins system (which manifests itself in generations of european top politicians ending up in the managements of russian energy enterprises), explains the complete paralysis of Europe, not only in the question of Ukraine.
FFF does not give a damn about democracy elsewhere than their circle where they want to do whatever they want to do. It is one of their agendas to change the political system. Mostly conform to "communist and socialist ideas". There has been absolute NO mobilization for Ukraine, for democracy and for liberty. They do not give a thought about China either/. They are suipporting regimes like that. --- This movement is often antisemitic and anti-Israel while running around in the streets of Berlin or Munich but they are incapable of recognizing a terror-regime like Russia, understanding the implications of its disinformation ; they did not give a damn about the explosion of the damn but went to demonstrate next to a RWE installation for the 50s time. Thery arer a despicable crowd of youngsters without any vision and it is not certain whether they are able to diffentiate a democratic state from a totalitarian one. --- There have been movements of young people for freedom and democracy in the GDR, in Poland, in Czechoslovakia who created a free space and values around environmental subjects. There was a youth who took up arms in the French résistance. --- Today, especially in Germany values like freedom, democracy, distribution of power, human rights in the Russian Federation is very far from these youngsters.
Fridays for Future does not want to change the political system. It wants to enforce political action, after yearly, worldwide governmental agreed upon, ever more ambitious climate goals (which we are failing miserably btw). And it does so by the most basic democratic means like strikes and demonstrations and is one of the biggest political global youth movements in decades.
Anything else you try to pin on them is not worth commenting.
Anyways I used them as an example why the painted picture of a tic-toc watching youth with no political interest is not a reality.
Of course it does or you have never been present in the circles where it is discussed. have you ever marched with them ? Have you ever discussed with leading members of FFF in Germany what they think about China ? Have you ever tried to convince them into action regarding Russia ? --- They do not give a damn about democracy. --- They could have reinvented themselves when Russia invaded Ukraine for the third time. But they did not want to. --- Antisemitism. If you look at the language these guys use, you can see very well their antisemitic approach. They try to evoke the memory of the Shoah : Climate Denier, climate catastrophy is ungraspable like the holocaust, the Holocaust as "like a regular event" in history. All of this is real. ... But by now FFF at least in Germany is already looking old and semlls dead.
That's a bit of an absurd take. I'm a bit tired of lazy journos creating this kind of narrative. Read more about Slovakia's political disfunction, it has much more complexity than "Russia loving EU hating". There are political divisions in the US and EU but these do not fit into that narrow "decline of the west" narrative. It has more to to with social bubbles and people with different socio-economic circumstances being completely out of touch with each other.
You may as well go back to WW2 and conclude that the USA is full of Hitler sympathizers and is doomed to abandon democracy and cooperate with a new fashist world order.
I dont think they want to live in the East. But they are nostalgic, The world was better before. (When you were younger If you are old). Or when males had undisputed power over women. Or nobody proster against the Church or there was only two genders and so on and so on. It doesnt really matter what the world actually was thirthy years ago. You just need to have an idea of some glorious past and then you can sell it. And far too many buy into this picture that never was, people dont want East, but they dislike society today and opt for some fantasy. But I aplogise, this is disgressing from the main topic of the blog.
Thanks for your reports, they are all very interesting and i lock forward to them. They give a good overview of the situation that not many other reporting on the war can do
Ukraine has significant problems with reconnaissance and a big lack of information about the enemy and its actions in close areas to the frontline. I think the enemy makes the same mistakes like he always does, for instance, russians gained the party in Makiivka on 31 December. Killing 400 mobics at one moment helps much more than new tactics on the battlefield. Unfortunately, the ukrainian military intelligence and their NATO colleagues work not so perfect like they should do.
The battlefield is a big mess, even under 'ideal condition'. One 'hidden under' hedgerows and 1.5m tall grass.... even more so.
....don't want to know how many people were KIA in different local bushfires of the last two months...
Bushfires are not that bad here - the dry grass burns out quickly. One can usually extinguish the burning grass with one's boots. However, they may smoke out hiding soldiers that would then be targeted by the artillery.
Thank you so much.
Great write up as always. In all this I really hope Ukraine, Sweden, the Baltics, Finland, Poland and the UK make efforts to manufacture weapons for Ukraine. Cant rely on the US really. Trump could make a comeback or some other Republican weirdo and Democratic Natsec teams are either lenient to Russia or totally inept.
Indeed. I actually expect quite a lot from South Korea. But, lets wait and see...
This would even be better if they are part of the whole group. South Korea doesn't play around when it comes to defense production.
Thanks for the report Tom good information as always
Thanks for the update. My overall reading of this is that Russia now is back to counterattack because the alternative is actually worse. Loss of initiative is bad, Even If counterattack is the only initiative. On the other hand the counter attacks are costly. So we will likely see a rise in Russian causualities. Bite and hold strategy still seems logical, and the only way to go.
Hi Tom. Thanks for your job because your reports always are alternative point of view on this war. Last time I've seen in some Ukrainian Telegram channels an idea that offensive on Donetsk and Gorlivka would be better option than storming Russians on Robotyne front. Your thoughts?
Donetsk and Gorlivka are urban areas that have been fortified for 9 years longer then Robotyne.
That's the answer.
Thank you Tom. Slow and steady.
If our countries stop military support to Ukraine to save money, they will spend later 100 times the money saved today.
Most countries (and politicians) care only about the short term, and their horizon is up to the next elections, at most
https://twitter.com/FRHoffmann1/status/1709191669630058527
Thread purporting to tally all PSU reporting of Russian missile/drone strikes over the past 12 months by system and category.