Ukraine Watch...

[Ralphw2]

Ukraine has deployed marine drones which then deploy flying drones to attack a natural gas platform in the black sea, successfully setting the superstructure on fire, and possibly damaging the supporting structure. Probably shut down any remaining production from the platform, and maybe from other platforms if it was a pipeline hub.

Very quiet on the Kursk front, Ukraine making small gains. Russia still attacking in the south east part of the front, but the remaining areas have gone relatively quiet. Reports that the Russian big numbers advantage in artillery has declined sharply. Probably due to the Ukrainian successful stormshadow strikes on Russian stockpiles.

[invalid]

Very quiet on the Kursk front, Ukraine making small gains.

Not in Kursk... And anywhere that Ukraine has made 'small gains' is dwarfed by the amount of gains Russia is making! As we know, Russian gains have been turbocharged ever since Ukraine decided to take their trip into Kursk (something which doesn't have a record of ending well).

[invalid]

Ukrainians sense betrayal as talk of defeat and diplomacy swirls

https://www.thetimes.com/world/russia-u ... -7tdjfp0dm

Now, the front lines are unravelling and Ukraine’s threadbare army is on the retreat. Russian troops conquered an area larger than London in November...

Even President Zelensky has abandoned hope of recapturing Russian-occupied territory in the east. “Our army lacks the strength to do that,” the Ukrainian president admitted in a recent interview. “We do have to find diplomatic solutions.”

[invalid]

Russian forces are now just three kilometers (1.9 miles) from the outskirts of the key eastern Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk after making advances Wednesday, according to Ukrainian mapping service DeepState. They have also destroyed or captured Ukrainian positions near the city, a Ukrainian army spokesperson said.

https://edition.cnn.com/2024/12/11/euro ... index.html

Slave Ukraini!

[BritDownUnder]

Not all bad news though. I hear Ukraine has bagged a Russian cruise missile expert named Shatsky by assassinating them in a Moscow Park.

I will have to check out some of those mapping sites that show the real time progress of the war.

40000 casualties to supposedly take the area of London = 1500km2 is quite a good bargain I think. Apparently all new Russian recruits are killed in their first month on the line.

I was reading another interesting story on "Deathonomics" whereby people in Russian regions of Tuva and Buratiya are sending people to fight and die as the payments on death are greater than the total earnings that the casualty would earn in their whole working life.

[invalid]

In other good news:

Ukraine's largest steel producer Metinvest has suspended operations at its coal plant near the frontline town of Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region due to approaching Russian forces, the company announced Tuesday.

The decision to close the Pischane plant follows heavy fighting in the Pokrovsk district, a key Ukrainian logistics hub that the Russian advance has targeted for months...

Pischane is Ukraine’s largest coking coal producer and one of the largest in Eastern Europe, accounting for half of Metinvest's coal supply used in steelmaking.

The closure poses a severe threat to Ukraine’s steel industry. While Ukraine has other coal deposits, the coking coal deposit at Pischane is the main source of this key input to the country’s steelmaking industry. Metal exports are the country's second-largest foreign currency earner after agriculture.

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2024/12/ ... vsk-a87330

[Mark]

In other good news

What exactly are you trying to prove on here ?
We know exactly the state of the war (are you Russians still calling it a Special Military Operation ?)
Russia is advancing a few metres every day, at a massive cost in men and materials....
Meanwhile, the Rouble is tanking, inflation is up, sanctions are biting, the people are being repressed and your only friends are in N. Korea....

Everyone is just waiting for Trump to see what the endgame looks like.
More than likely, another NATO Member on your border.

[invalid]

We know exactly the state of the war

Russia is advancing a few metres every day,

Given Russia advanced 702km2 in November alone, I'm not at all sure you know exactly the state of the war! The rest of your post is just as inaccurate.

Russia is clearly not just waiting for Trump! It's making the most of its advantages. You don't think it's significant to put the largest coal mine in Ukraine out of action? You don't think taking Khurakove or Pokrovsk would be significant?

It seems that your knowledge of the SMO is severely lacking!! Might want to consider other sources than the Daily Heil.

[Ralphw2]

The front line is serveral hundred kilometers long, so 700 km2 in a month is 23 km2 a day . Over a front line of say, 460 km, that averages 50 meters a day over the whole front.

[clv101]

Hang on, this war isn't about territory. Russia is after power and influence - a pro-Moscow government in Kyiv. A 'solution' that gives Russia some territory but results in the rest of Ukraine being more west-facing is not what they are after. They don't need/want to capture/absorb all of Ukraine, they want regime change and see continued military pressure as the means to that end.

[BritDownUnder]

Hang on, this war isn't about territory. Russia is after power and influence - a pro-Moscow government in Kyiv. A 'solution' that gives Russia some territory but results in the rest of Ukraine being more west-facing is not what they are after. They don't need/want to capture/absorb all of Ukraine, they want regime change and see continued military pressure as the means to that end.

In February 2022 capturing the whole of Ukraine was precisely Russia's objective. They were in many areas defeated and fell back on the easily defensible border of the Dniper river and the now varying front line in the Donbass and Luhansk region.

I think Russians are advancing on Prokrovsk as it is a major road and rail junction. I am sure the coal mine and coke production facility are also quite useful for Russia to increasingly monopolise coal production and make stupid Europeans (who due to Soviet and Russian financed 'environmentalists' have closed down their own coal mines) pay even more for steel than they already are. The useful idiots are even at it in Australia wanting to close coal mines, powers stations and even stop any nuclear plants being built in Australia at the moment.

It is clear Ukraine has made a lot of mistakes in training their army. Instead of a comprehensive training and conscription operation they have chosen to train a small elite army which is getting ground down by Russians. Much better to have given everybody guns, even explosives, and minimal training to have a kind of defence in depth. This is probably due to the Ukrainian speaking Ukrainians not trusting the Russian speaking Ukrainians fully.

[Mark]

who due to Soviet and Russian financed 'environmentalists' have closed down their own coal mines

Can you provide any evidence for this, or does it just fit nicely into your anti left wing bias ?

I consider myself an 'environmentalist' in the broader sense and have been involved in several groups over the years.
I have only ever seen concerned individuals and none of the groups have/had a penny to rub together...
Even just printing some leaflets can sometimes be a financial challenge...
Some of these are/were well known organisations.

[BritDownUnder]

who due to Soviet and Russian financed 'environmentalists' have closed down their own coal mines

Can you provide any evidence for this, or does it just fit nicely into your anti left wing bias ?

I consider myself an 'environmentalist' in the broader sense and have been involved in several groups over the years.
I have only ever seen concerned individuals and none of the groups have/had a penny to rub together...
Even just printing some leaflets can sometimes be a financial challenge...
Some of these are/were well known organisations.

None at all except their aims seem to be very well aligned. The Soviet Union did spend a reasonable percentage of its GDP on subversion though. I am sure there's a bit left in the pot for the Russian secret services.

EDIT : After five seconds google searching.

Russia, green groups not-so-strange bedfellows

“It has recently come to light that environmental organisations operating within the European Union have, to a large extent, been a cover for Russian lobbying aimed at weakening the EU economically and making member states dependent on Russian energy resources,” Polish MEP Witold Jan Waszczykowski declared to the European Commission in March.

Indeed, accusations of Russian meddling in Europe’s energy crisis have come from the heart of NATO itself. Speaking to The Guardian in June 2014, the secretary-general of NATO and former prime minister of Denmark Anders Fogh Rasmussen shone a spotlight on the extent to which Russia collaborates with environmentalist movements to disrupt European energy independence: “I have met allies who can report that Russia, as part of their sophisticated information and disinformation operations, engaged actively with so-called non-governmental organisations – environmental organisations working against shale gas – to maintain European dependence on imported Russian gas,” Rasmussen said.

Letter written by two nasty horrible, clearly anti-left biased Republican Congressmen to the US Treasury Secretary in 2017.

[Ralphw2]

Back on topic,

North Koreans have been positively identified making human wave attacks in Kursk in significant numbers. Dozens of troops filmed advancing across open territory on foot with no mechanised or artillery support, and suffering very high losses. However, because they attack in such numbers, they have successfully over run the Ukrainian positions which are probably only defended by a single platoon in a few places along the line.

In the south, a moving Russian fuel supply train was successfully attacked causing a large fire and probably damaging the tracks.

[ I spoke to my brother's ex boss today, who confirmed he was the UK's best electronic signals intelligence analyst for the last two decades]

[Forever_Winter]

According to various media reports a top Russian general and his assistant have been killed by a bomb in an e-scooter. A different form of assassination than falling out of a window.....

EDIT - Ukraine have fessed up that it was them that carried out the attack. Seems a bit too sophisticated for them to do this on their own....