ONGOING ARMED CONFLICT Russia Declares Open War on Ukraine And Launches Missles on Major Cities

[Meatpie]

Russian forces continue barrage of artillery and rocket fire from northern to southern Ukraine​

A woman walks past a building damaged by missile strikes in the eastern Donbas region of Bakhmut, Ukraine, on November 1.

The Ukrainian military said that Russian forces continue to carry out artillery and rocket attacks throughout the front lines, stretching from Kharkiv in the north to Zaporizhzhia in the south. Altogether, it said, more than 50 settlements were hit from Sunday to Monday night.

In the east: Parts of the Donetsk region were among those hardest hit, with Soledar, Vuhledar and Bakhmut districts coming under fire. Ukrainian forces still hold Bakhmut, but along with settlements to the east and south, it is under daily attack.

The Ukrainian military’s General Staff also reported heavy shelling in areas to the west of the city of Donetsk that have been contested for several months.

It said the Russians continue to shell recently liberated parts of Kharkiv and Luhansk, where Ukrainian forces have been edging forward toward Russian resupply routes. Several settlements in Kharkiv region close to the Russian border were also shelled, it said.

Further south, Ukraine appears to have targeted a Russian military headquarters in the town of Volnovakha in Donetsk region with long-range rockets.

Yurii Mysiagin, the deputy head of parliamentary committee on national security, intelligence and defense, said it was reported that the Akhtamar hotel on the Mariupol-Donetsk highway, where Chechen forces were based, was hit.

The local Russian-backed authorities in Donetsk confirmed the building was destroyed but gave no further details.

In the south: As Ukrainian forces try to push further into the southern region of Kherson, the Russians continue to respond with shelling by tanks and artillery across a wide area, according to the General Staff. Several settlements in Zaporizhzhia came under fire, and the city of Mykolaiv was also hit again on Monday night. Two S-300 missiles struck the city, and one residential building was demolished. One woman was reported killed by the mayor’s office.

The General Staff echoed the comments of regional officials that in Kakhovka, on the Dnieper river, “citizens living in apartments along the banks of the Dnipro are forcibly evicted from their homes.”

It said Russian forces were building fortifications and laying “mine-explosive barriers around civilian housing.”

Ukrainian officials said that rather than leave the west bank in Kherson, Russian units appear to be digging in.

 

[Meatpie]

Good evening. Here’s a run through the latest developments as it passes 6.30pm in Kyiv. Not very positive for Ukraine I am afraid.

• Kyiv authorities have begun planning the evacuation of the city’s 3m residents if the Ukrainian capital suffers a complete blackout, according to the New York Times.
• The Biden administration in the US is privately encouraging Ukraine’s leaders to signal an openness to negotiate with Russia and drop their public refusal to engage in peace talks unless Vladimir Putin is removed from power, according to the Washington Post.
• Russian forces are stepping up their strikes in a fiercely contested region of eastern Ukraine, worsening the already tough conditions for residents and the defending army, Ukrainian authorities have said.
• The mayor of Kyiv has warned residents to prepare for the worst, saying that if Russia keeps striking the country’s energy infrastructure they must prepare for having no electricity, water or heat as temperatures drop below freezing.
• Russian troops have been looting Kherson ahead of a potential withdrawal from the south-eastern Ukrainian city. Items taken range from art and cultural exhibits to ambulances and tractors.
• There has been an assassination attempt on a judge who sentenced two Britons to death in Russian-controlled Ukraine. Alexander Nikulin, who said Aiden Aslin and Shaun Pinner should be shot by a firing squad, was shot in Vuhlehirsk, in Donetsk, on Friday night. The local supreme court justice is in a serious condition in hospital.
• Russian troops are allegedly searching for residents in the Kherson region who are refusing to evacuate, before the forces’ potential withdrawal from the west bank of the Dnieper River.
• The Ukrainian foreign ministry has claimed its forces killed another 600 Russian soldiers in the past 24 hours.
• Iran’s foreign minister, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, has said the country did supply Russia with drones but that it took place before President Vladimir Putin’s forces invaded Kyiv. The drones have been used in attacks on civilian infrastructure, notably targeting power stations and dams.
• President Volodymyr Zelenskiy dismissed talk of limited Iranian supplies to Russia, saying Kyiv had downed 11 drones on Friday alone. He said: “If Iran continues to lie about the obvious, it means the world will make even more efforts to investigate the terrorist cooperation between the Russian and Iranian regimes and what Russia pays Iran for such cooperation.” Ukraine’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Oleg Nikolenko, said Iran “should realise that the consequences of complicity in the crimes of Russian aggression against Ukraine will be much larger than the benefits of Russia’s support”.
• External power has been restored to Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant two days after it was disconnected from the power grid after Russian shelling damaged high voltage lines, the UN nuclear watchdog said.
• Nato’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, has said he does not believe Russia will use a nuclear weapon in Ukraine.
• The 300,000 troops Putin conscripted as part of the mobilisation drive are providing “little additional offensive combat capability” as the Russian military is struggling to train them, UK’s Ministry of Defence has reported.
• Scheduled power cuts will take place on Sunday in seven Ukrainian provinces including major cities such as Kyiv. Other provinces affected are Kharkiv, Chernihiv, Cherkasy, Zhytomyr, Sumy and Poltava. About 500 power generators have been sent to Ukraine by 17 EU countries to help with the energy problems caused by Russian attacks.
• At least 112,000 Russians have emigrated to Georgia this year, border crossing statistics show. Reuters reported that the first large wave of 43,000 arrived after Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 February and the second wave came after Putin announced a nationwide mobilisation drive in late September.

The map below reflects the current front lines in Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Earlier this week, a Ukrainian military official said some of the fiercest battles in the conflict are taking place in the eastern Luhansk region, especially in the Svatove-Kreminna area, north of Russian-occupied Severodonetsk.

 

[Meatpie]

Mykolaiv region completely liberated from orcs according to Ukrainian commander​

The southern Ukrainian region of Mykolaiv has been entirely liberated from Russian control, according to a Ukrainan military colonel.

Roman Kostenko, who is also the chairman of the defence and intelligence committee in Ukraine's parliament, posted a video this afternoon stating that Mykolaiv, the last city being held by Russia in the region, is now under Ukrainian control.

If confirmed, the full liberation of Mykolaiv Oblast would be a significant victory for Ukrainian forces.

It comes after the Ukrainian military earlier announced it had recaptured the key town of Snihurivka, located on the border of Kherson and Mykolaiv provinces.

 

[Meatpie]

Ukraine in full control of Kherson​

Centre of Kherson earlier today.

Good afternoon. Great historic day today! Ukraine’s armed forces have reached the centre of Kherson as Russia’s retreat from the key strategic city appeared to have descended into chaotic scenes.

Amid reports of wounded Russian soldiers being abandoned or taken prisoner, Ukrainian shelling of troop crossings across the Dnipro River, one Russian soldiers told of some units being told to escape any way they can.

Pictures posted on social media from Kherson on Friday morning were said to show Ukrainian infantry being greeted by residents in the Korabelnyi district of the city with the city’s Garrison pub visible in the background.

A member of the Kherson regional council told Reuters that almost all of the city was under control of Ukrainian armed forces.

Residents were being advised to stay at home while searches continued for Russian troops still in the city, and that some drowned in the Dnipro river while trying to escape.

 

[Meatpie]

The BBC’s international editor, Jeremy Bowen, has been reporting from Kherson and tweeted a shocking photograph and said decomposing bodies had been left on the road to Kherson for months, but that they were cleared today.

 

[Meatpie]

Russian Missiles crossed into Nato Member Poland, Killing two People

Missile crater in Przewodów in the Hrubieszów district, Poland tonight.

Stray Russian missiles crossed into Poland on Tuesday evening, in what would be the first time Nato territory has been struck during the Ukraine war, as the Kremlin unleashed an intense attack on Ukraine that left 7m homes without power.

Two people were killed in an explosion in an eastern Polish village, prompting the government in Warsaw to hold an emergency meeting – while the 100-missile attack on Ukraine was so serious that power supplies in a third country, Moldova, were also cut.

Hungry also convened a meeting with its defence council, as several European countries post messages of solidarity and promises to defend Nato territorities.

 

[Frazeeme]

HURRAH! Ukrainians taking back that vital peninsula. They cleverly did it quite silently. I was wondering about that bit of strategic land.

 

[Meatpie]

Injured Ukranian soldier.

 

[Meatpie]

Ukranian Drone Attack Hits Oil Storage Tank at Airfield in Russia’s Kursk Region​

Good evening.

A drone attack has set an oil storage tank on fire at an airfield in Kursk, the Russian region’s governor has said, a day after Ukraine appeared to launch audacious drone attacks on two military airfields deep inside Russian territory.

Roman Starovoyt, the governor of the Kursk region bordering Ukraine, said on the Telegram messaging app there were no casualties from the attack and the fire was “localised”.

Video footage posted on social media showed a large explosion lighting up the night sky followed by a substantial fire at the airfield 175 miles (280km) from the Ukrainian border. At daybreak a large column of black smoke was still visible above the site.

Drone attack hits oil storage tank at airfield in Russia’s Kursk region

No casualties reported as facility set on fire, one day after Russia blames Ukraine for two other drone strikes

www.theguardian.com

 

[Meatpie]

Putin warns risk of nuclear war ‘on the rise’

Vladimir Putin was speaking during a televised session of Russia’s human rights council earlier today.

Vladimir Putin warned today that the threat of nuclear war was “on the rise” while speaking during a televised annual session of his human rights council.

Putin insisted Russia had not “gone mad” and that it saw its own nuclear arsenal as a purely defensive deterrent. He said:

We haven’t gone mad, we realise what nuclear weapons are. We have these means in more advanced and modern form than any other nuclear country, that’s an obvious fact. But we aren’t about to run around the world brandishing this weapon like a razor.

He went on to claim that Russia “could be the only guarantor of Ukraine’s territorial integrity”, adding:

It’s up to the new leaders of Ukraine.

 

[Meatpie]

‘There are maniacs who enjoy killing,’ Russian defector says of his former unit accused of war crimes in Bucha ​

Nikita Chibrin says he still remembers his fellow Russian soldiers running away after allegedly raping two Ukrainian women during their deployment northwest of Kyiv in March.

“I saw them run, then I learned they were rapists. They raped a mother and a daughter,” he said. Their commanders, Chibrin said, shrugged when finding out about the rapes. The alleged rapists were beaten, he says, but never fully punished for their crimes.

“They were never jailed. Just fired. Just like that: ‘Go!’ They were simply dismissed from the war. That’s it.”

Chibrin is a former soldier from the Russian city of Yakutsk who says he served in the 64th Separate Guards Motor Rifle Brigade, the notorious Russian military unit accused of committing war crimes during their offensive in Bucha, Borodianka and other towns and villages north of Kyiv.

He deserted from the Russian military in September and fled to Europe via Belarus and Kazakhstan.

Troops from Chibrin’s brigade were labeled war criminals by the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense in April after mass graves containing murdered civilians and dead bodies lying in the streets were discovered following the withdrawal of Russian forces from the Kyiv region.

'There are maniacs who enjoy killing,' Russian defector says of his former unit accused of war crimes in Bucha | CNN

Nikita Chibrin says he still remembers his fellow Russian soldiers running away after allegedly raping two Ukrainian women during their deployment northwest of Kyiv in March.

edition.cnn.com

 

[Dupytrens]

Quick summary of events so far:

• In a TV address at 05:55 Moscow time (02:55 GMT), Russia's Vladimir Putin announced a "military operation" in Ukraine's eastern Donbas region
• Putin said Russia was acting in self-defence. He urged Ukrainian soldiers to lay down their weapons. Any intervention by outside powers against Russia would get an "instant" response, he said
• Russia has hit Ukrainian infrastructure with missiles, Ukraine says. It also says it has shot down Russian aircraft - which Moscow denies
• Convoys of troops and tanks have entered Ukraine from all directions. One convoy has crossed from Belarus at a point to the north of the capital Kyiv. Another has entered from Crimea in the south, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014
• At least eight people are reported to have been killed
• There are long traffic jams as residents try to flee the capital Kyiv. Other residents have sought shelter in metro stations. BBC correspondents say that although people expected an attack, the scale of the invasion has taken them by surprise
• Ukraine has declared martial law. Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba has urged devastating sanctions, including banning Russia from the international Swift bank transfer system
• Oil prices have jumped to more than $100 a barrel for the first time in seven years. The Russian currency, the rouble, has plunged to an all-time low against the dollar and euro; UK markets have plunged
• There has been a chorus of condemnation from world leaders: US President Joe Biden said the war would bring "catastrophic loss of life"; UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he was "appalled" by the "unprovoked attack"

A true tragedy. I have sympathy for the dead of both sides. Almost 100,000 Russian youths sacrificed for absolutely nothing except to satisfy the ego of an elderly narcissistic dirtbag with delusions of grandeur - Vladimir Putin

 

[Meatpie]

The time is approaching for a negotiated peace in Ukraine to reduce the risk of another devastating world war, but dreams of breaking up Russia could unleash nuclear chaos, the veteran US diplomat Henry Kissinger has warned.




The time is approaching for a negotiated peace in Ukraine to reduce the risk of another devastating world war, but dreams of breaking up Russia could unleash nuclear chaos, the veteran US diplomat Henry Kissinger said.

Kissinger, an architect of the cold war policy of detente towards the Soviet Union as secretary of state under Republican presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, has met Vladimir Putin multiple times since he first became president in 2000.


The Kremlin says Kyiv must acknowledge Moscow’s annexation of southern and eastern regions. Ukraine says every Russian soldier must leave its territory, including Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014.

“The time is approaching to build on the strategic changes which have already been accomplished and to integrate them into a new structure towards achieving peace through negotiation,” Kissinger wrote in The Spectator magazine.

“A peace process should link Ukraine to Nato, however expressed. The alternative of neutrality is no longer meaningful,” Kissinger wrote in the Spectator magazine in an article entitled “How to avoid another world war”.

Kissinger, 99, suggested that if it proved impossible to return to the status quo established in 2014, internationally supervised referendums in territory claimed by Russia could be an option.

He warned that desires to render Russia “impotent”, or even seek the dissolution of Russia, could unleash chaos. Neither Ukraine nor any western state has advocated either path.

“The dissolution of Russia or destroying its ability for strategic policy could turn its territory encompassing 11 time zones into a contested vacuum,” Kissinger said.

“Its competing societies might decide to settle their disputes by violence. Other countries might seek to expand their claims by force. All these dangers would be compounded by the presence of thousands of nuclear weapons which make Russia one of the world’s two largest nuclear powers.”

How to avoid another world war

Henry Kissinger has died at the age of 100. He was the US Secretary of State under Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, and was one of the most powerful and influential people of the 20th and 21st century. He wrote the following piece for The Spectator for our Christmas issue last year. The first world

www.spectator.co.uk

 

[Meatpie]

Russia Can Finally See That Putin’s ‘Days Are Numbered’​

The war in Ukraine has destroyed Putin’s aura of infallibility back home, and even the Kremlin seems to have realized this is the beginning of the end.

Russia Can Finally See That Putin’s ‘Days Are Numbered’

The war in Ukraine has destroyed Putin’s aura of infallibility back home, and even the Kremlin seems to have realized this is the beginning of the end.

www.thedailybeast.com

 

[Dupytrens]

The time is approaching for a negotiated peace in Ukraine to reduce the risk of another devastating world war, but dreams of breaking up Russia could unleash nuclear chaos, the veteran US diplomat Henry Kissinger has warned.




The time is approaching for a negotiated peace in Ukraine to reduce the risk of another devastating world war, but dreams of breaking up Russia could unleash nuclear chaos, the veteran US diplomat Henry Kissinger said.

Kissinger, an architect of the cold war policy of detente towards the Soviet Union as secretary of state under Republican presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, has met Vladimir Putin multiple times since he first became president in 2000.


The Kremlin says Kyiv must acknowledge Moscow’s annexation of southern and eastern regions. Ukraine says every Russian soldier must leave its territory, including Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014.

“The time is approaching to build on the strategic changes which have already been accomplished and to integrate them into a new structure towards achieving peace through negotiation,” Kissinger wrote in The Spectator magazine.

“A peace process should link Ukraine to Nato, however expressed. The alternative of neutrality is no longer meaningful,” Kissinger wrote in the Spectator magazine in an article entitled “How to avoid another world war”.

Kissinger, 99, suggested that if it proved impossible to return to the status quo established in 2014, internationally supervised referendums in territory claimed by Russia could be an option.

He warned that desires to render Russia “impotent”, or even seek the dissolution of Russia, could unleash chaos. Neither Ukraine nor any western state has advocated either path.

“The dissolution of Russia or destroying its ability for strategic policy could turn its territory encompassing 11 time zones into a contested vacuum,” Kissinger said.

“Its competing societies might decide to settle their disputes by violence. Other countries might seek to expand their claims by force. All these dangers would be compounded by the presence of thousands of nuclear weapons which make Russia one of the world’s two largest nuclear powers.”

How to avoid another world war

Henry Kissinger has died at the age of 100. He was the US Secretary of State under Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, and was one of the most powerful and influential people of the 20th and 21st century. He wrote the following piece for The Spectator for our Christmas issue last year. The first world

www.spectator.co.uk

Interestingly, Kissinger had a mistress, now 100 years old, and I knew her. He was quite kinky, according to her.

 

[Meatpie]

Merry Christmas.

It’s 6pm in Kyiv. Here is my latest war summary for Chrismas Day.

• Russia is ready to negotiate with all parties involved in the war in Ukraine, President Vladimir Putin has said, while accusing Kyiv and its western allies of “refusing” to negotiate. Moscow has persistently said it is open to negotiations, but Kyiv and its allies suspect Putin’s claims are a ploy to buy time after a series of Russian defeats and retreats on the battlefield.
• Ukraine’s presidential adviser, Mykhailo Podolyak, said Putin “needs to come back to reality” after the Russian leader claimed Moscow was ready for negotiations. It is “obvious” that Russia “doesn’t want negotiations, but tries to avoid responsibility”, Podolyak tweeted.
• President Putin also blamed the west for starting the conflict in Ukraine in 2014 by toppling a pro-Russian president, Viktor Yanukovych, in the Maidan revolution protests. But he told Rossiya 1 state television that the geopolitical conflict with the west was not “so dangerous”.
• Air raid alerts blared across Kyiv and most of Ukraine twice on Sunday. Officials gave the all-clear and there were no immediate reports of Russian attacks on the country. Unconfirmed reports on Ukrainian social media suggested the sirens may have been triggered after Russian jets took to the skies in Belarus.
• At least 16 people were killed and 64 injured in Russia’s shelling of the Kherson region in southern Ukraine on Saturday, the region’s governor Yaroslav Yanushevych said. Russian forces “opened fire on the Kherson region 71 times” with artillery, multiple launch rocket systems and mortars, Yanushevych said. Iuliia Mendel, a Ukrainian former presidential spokesperson, shared photos of people waiting to donate blood in Kherson.
• Among those killed in Kherson on Saturday were three Ukrainian emergency services workers, who died when a mine exploded while they were demining parts of the Kherson region. “All three selflessly served … and performed the task of demining territories liberated from the enemy in the Kherson region,” the Zhytomyr emergency service said on its Facebook page.
• Russian forces’ rate of advance in the Bakhmut area of eastern Ukraine has probably slowed in recent days, according to analysts. In its latest update, the US thinktank Institute for the Study of War (ISW) cited one Russian military blogger as saying that Ukrainian forces had pushed back elements of the Russian private mercenary company, the Wagner group, to positions they held days ago.
• President Volodymyr Zelenskiy used his latest video address to say that Ukrainians would create their Christmas miracle, by remaining unbowed, despite Russian attacks that have left millions without power. Speaking 10 months to the day since Russia invaded, Zelenskiy said that while freedom came at a high price, slavery would cost even more.
• Russia’s parliament is preparing to introduce a higher taxation rate for people who have left the county, as many have since the war in Ukraine began in February. Some local media reported that as many as 700,000 fled after the announcement of a mobilisation drive to call up new troops to join the fight in September. The government rejected that figure at the time.
• China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, has defended his country’s position on the war in Ukraine and indicated that Beijing will deepen ties with Moscow in the coming year. China will “deepen strategic mutual trust and mutually beneficial cooperation” with Russia, Wang said in a video address, according to an official text of his remarks.
• The archbishop of Canterbury and Pope Francis have used their Christmas addresses to call for an end to the war in Ukraine. Condemning the use of food as a weapon of war, the pope said the war in Ukraine and conflict in other countries had put millions at risk of famine.

 

[Meatpie]

Russians Fear They’ll Soon Be Starving ‘Like North Koreans’​

The brutal economic reality of a long war is beginning to dawn on even the most ardent pro-Putin propagandists, as Russia prepares for misery at home.

Russians Fear They’ll Soon Be Starving ‘Like North Koreans’

The brutal economic reality of a long war is beginning to dawn on even the most ardent pro-Putin propagandists, as Russia prepares for misery at home.

www.thedailybeast.com

Russia rang in the new year with gaudy excess, patriotic fervor and echoes of a Soviet past. In studios filled with visiting servicemen, brought in from the front lines to film the New Year’s extravaganza, hosts and performers toasted victory and mocked the West for the side effects of Russian sanctions. Comedian Yevgeny Petrosyan cheered for the troops, assuring them that the entire country was behind them. He taunted Ukraine and its Western allies: "Like it or not, Russia is enlarging!"
Noisy bravado couldn’t hide the fact that no one was drinking from the champagne glasses seemingly filled with sparkling water, or the blank stares on the faces of the visiting troops. One of the hosts, sports commentator Dmitry Guberniev, compared life to a biathlon—a grueling cross-country ski race with rifle shooting—and surmised: “If you’re having a hard time, then the finish line is near and victory is close!”

Holiday cheer notwithstanding, even Russian propagandists realize that hard times are only starting and attempts to summon a ghost of the Soviet past are directly related to a starkly different way of life that awaits the average Russian. On Wednesday, host of Solovyov Live Sergey Mardan struggled to contain his feelings about “the grinning and glee on the federal channels,” which continued even after the news of a HIMARS strike that killed dozens of Russian troops in Makiivka. Mardan raged: “What happened in Makiivka is a tragedy! A real tragedy! There didn’t have to be a phone call from the top for them to figure out that TV programming should be changed to something that is more fitting. Instead of vulgar anecdotes, put on any old Soviet movie.”

The Soviet grooming that is being implemented by many Russian propagandists is meant to condition the people to the rapid decline in the standards of living to which many of them have become accustomed. The expectations are so dire, Mardan posed a startling question to his economic expert, Denis Raksha: “What are our chances? Do we even have them or not? Will we have to live like South Korea in the 1950s-1960s? Will we end up having to eat fire ants?”

Raksha explained that if Russia intends to drastically rebuild its economy in order to be self-sustaining everyday life will become quite difficult, even if Russians won’t have to resort to eating ants. He added: “Currently, the industrialization reminiscent of that of the 19th century or the 1920s-1930s is practically impossible. In that case, we’d have to live not like South Koreans, but like North Koreans.”

Another kind of hunger is also concerning Russian experts: a looming lack of ammunition. On Jan. 2, Victor Murakhovsky, editor-in-chief of the Arsenal of the Fatherland magazine, raised an alarm on his Telegram channel, where he wrote: “In 1914, miscalculations of the General Staff as to the rate of accumulation of shells (900 shots) led to an acute shortage of shells for the army in the field. Urgent measures were required to save the army from a complete shell starvation. The military industry was not ready to solve this problem... the “ammo hunger” was fully eliminated only in 1916.”

Murakhovsky went on to explain his calculations for the same problem that is raising its head now: “In the early 1990s, the Russian army inherited from the Soviet army about 15 million tons of missiles and ammunition... As of January 1, 2013, the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation had 3.7 million tons of ammunition, of which 1.1 million tons are unusable. This means that 2.6 million tons of ammunition are usable. In 2020, almost 300 thousand pieces of ammunition were repaired and more than 20 thousand shells for multiple launch rocket systems were collected. The realistic need for ammunition is MILLIONS of pieces per year.”
During his program, Mardan described the predictions of the upcoming ammunition shortages as “apocalyptic writings” and pondered out loud whether Russian industry would be able to solve this problem. His guest, military expert Vladislav Shurygin, cautiously replied: “I read that post. It should be acknowledged that it was written by one of our best military professionals... but his calculations didn’t include the rate at which the ammo is currently being produced.” He argued that imposing strict usage norms on the battlefield was the way to keep the issue under control. Meanwhile, Russia is reportedly continuing to court other pariah states to source weapons and ammo to replenish its dwindling stocks.

The simple solution of abandoning Russia’s failing invasion of Ukraine never seems to occur to the pro-Kremlin propagandists. Mardan raged: “The enemy has to be destroyed down to the root! It has to be exterminated! Russian history of the last 1,000 years shows that the deed has to be brought to its final conclusion... If Stalin had deported [the people of] Western Ukraine—to me, it’s still a mystery why he didn’t do it—perhaps none of this would be happening.”
To sweeten the pot, the host rejoiced over millions of Ukrainian refugees who ended up in Russia, while Moscow struggles to alleviate a severe demographic crisis: “Look at how much the Motherland is spending to solve the demographic problem... We got these people [Ukrainians] for free, for nothing—approximately five million of them! Five million souls!”

Concluding the program, Mardan grimly noted: “To everyone who says that Russia should get up off its knees—myself included—my friends, I’m afraid that our former way of life is a thing of the past... It’s practically unavoidable... perhaps we’ll be reflecting upon the past year as our last fat year. On the other hand, a great victory is ahead of us!”

 

[Meatpie]

Good evening.

Horrific day in Ukraine today as five civilians were killed and more than 60 injured in Russian air strikes on Dnipro many children are badly wounded after a block of flats partially collapsed and trapped residents underneath.

No words to describe the scale of the Russian atrocities.
Denys Shmyhal, the Ukrainian prime minister, earlier said air defenses saved "the lives of thousands of people."


Local residents clear the rubble after a Russian rocket hit a multistory building in Dnipro on Saturday, leaving many people under debris.

 

[Meatpie]

Putin alone with the casket of Murtaza Rakhimov who died in Ufa on 11 January 2023, at the age of 88.

 

[Meatpie]

Good evening.

The death toll from Saturday's Russian missile strike on an apartment block in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro has risen to 25, with 73 others injured, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky said Sunday.
Here are the latest numbers from the blast, according to Zelensky's update on his official Telegram channel:

• 25 people were killed, including one child
• 73 people were injured, including 13 children
• 39 people were rescued, including 6 children
• 43 people are still missing

He added that 72 apartments were destroyed and more than 230 apartments were damaged.
"4 tents of the State Emergency Service and 2 tents from volunteers were set up. Psychologists are providing assistance to the victims," the Ukrainian president said.
Zelensky also said that the search and rescue operations and dismantling of dangerous structural elements continue "round the clock."
"We continue to fight for every life," he said, expressing his condolences to the relatives and friends of the victims.