“Ukraine – Russia”

A complacent West underestimates just how low the Kremlin could go.

Too many among Britain’s political and media class are in danger of taking Russia’s defeat for granted.

UK defence secretary Ben Wallace said this week that the Kremlin’s operational capability in Ukraine ‘falters further every day’. Even Michael Clarke, a sober military expert, has insisted that Putin now faces ‘only different kinds of defeat’.

This may well be true. But there is a risk of complacency about what lies ahead.

#Ukraine: Russian forces sustained remarkable losses from the failed bridging attempt over the Siverskyi Donets River.

We count 6x T-72B-series MBT, 14x BMP-1/2 variants, 7x MT-LB, a tugboat & 5+ other armoured vehicles destroyed/abandoned/damaged. Note precise ID is very hard. https://t.co/py48JvXWUG pic.twitter.com/cqX60F0KPT

— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) May 11, 2022

Vladimir Putin is preparing for a long war in Ukraine, with even victory in the east potentially not ending the conflict, US intelligence has warned.

The warning comes as fierce fighting continues in the east, where Russia is trying to take territory.

Moscow refocused its troops on capturing the Donbas region after Ukraine resisted attempts to take its capital, Kyiv.

But despite this, its forces remain in a stalemate, US intelligence said.

She added that the Russian president was “probably” counting on US and EU support for Ukraine to weaken as inflation, food shortages and energy prices got worse.

And just in time from the CBC – prepare for the forever war!

Can the West continue arming Ukraine at the current rate?

If the West is in it for the long haul, defence contractors have work and hiring to do

I cannot support a war in which each side continues to trade in oil and gas “so as to not upset the economy” or others exploit the conflict to further their green-scam agenda.

I feel we are being played, told to accept uninterrupted commerce between so-called “belligerents” as the new normal.

Every war has it’s profiteers, typically they exploit their own and are not in cahoots with the “sworn enemy of whatever.”

“Viva GazProm” just doesn’t sound right.

Indian influencer ER Yamini has never tweeted in her life – she prefers to cultivate her big fan bases on Instagram and YouTube.

But in early March, a Twitter account using her picture tweeted: “#IStandWithPutin. True Friendship” accompanied by a video showing two men hugging – one representing India, the other, Russia.

Yamini says she doesn’t support either country in the Russia-Ukraine war, and worries about her fans.

Airpower should have been one of Russia’s greatest advantages over Ukraine. With almost 4,000 combat aircraft and extensive experience bombing targets in Syria, Georgia, and Chechnya, Russia’s air force was expected to play a vital role in the invasion, allowing the Russian army to plunge deep into Ukraine, seize Kyiv, and destroy the Ukrainian military. But more than two months into the war, Vladimir Putin’s air force is still fighting for control of the skies.

The Russian air force’s failure is perhaps the most important, but least discussed, story of the military conflict so far. Ukrainian forces showed surprising strength in the air war, and adapted as the fighting progressed. But either side of this war could still gain air supremacy—and fundamentally change the course of the conflict.

NEUILLY-SUR-SEINE, France, May 10 (Reuters) – The Russian military’s failure to seize the Ukrainian capital was inevitable because in the preceding years they had never directly faced a powerful enemy, according to a former mercenary with the Kremlin-linked Wagner Group who fought alongside the Russian army.

Marat Gabidullin took part in Wagner Group missions on the Kremlin’s behalf in Syria and in a previous conflict in Ukraine, before deciding to go public about his experience inside the secretive private military company.

A number of Chinese government-linked media outlets and pro-Russia social media accounts are spreading pro-Kremlin sentiment on the Chinese internet by mistranslating or manipulating international news about the war in Ukraine.

In response, online, anonymous volunteers – such as those under the Twitter account Great Translation Movement – have exposed China’s pro-Russia propaganda by highlighting mistranslations that falsely blame Ukrainian troops for bombings and atrocities perpetrated by Russian forces against civilians.

ZAPORIZHZHIA, Ukraine (AP) — Russian troops pounded away at the vital port of Odesa, Ukrainian officials said Tuesday, apparently as part of efforts to disrupt the supply lines and weapons shipments that have been critical to Kyiv’s defense.

Ukraine’s ability to stymie a larger, better armed Russian military has surprised many observers, who had anticipated a much quicker conflict. With the war now in its 11th week and Kyiv bogging Russian forces down in many places and even staging a counteroffensive in others, Ukraine’s foreign minister appeared to suggest that the country could expand its aims beyond merely pushing Russia back to areas it or its allies held on the day of Feb. 24 invasion.

Ukraine War: Putin’s Victory Day speech fact-checked

“Kyiv has declared that it could obtain nuclear weapons”
President Putin has repeatedly said Ukraine plans to acquire nuclear weapons as a justification for Russia’s invasion, although there’s no evidence this is the case.

When it was part of the former Soviet Union, Ukraine did have nuclear weapons, but gave these up in the 1990s in return for security guarantees from the US, UK and Russia.

#Ukraine: The K2 Unit of the 54th Mechanized Brigade struck a Russian column somewhere in #Donetsk Oblast with artillery fire- as a result, 5x BMP IFV/Tanks were destroyed, with damage to others likely. pic.twitter.com/a9ITYdcs0C

— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) May 10, 2022

#Ukraine: Footage of the destruction of this T-90M- as claimed, a Carl Gustaf recoilless rifle was used, but it actually appears that it was destroyed by a UA-operated tank.

Seems that HE-FRAG ammo was used against the poorly-protected rear, penetrating & destroying the tank. https://t.co/WTskZHKGqE pic.twitter.com/lQimWXiatY

— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) May 10, 2022

Portraying Ukraine as the successor to Nazi Germany is a contemptible, dehumanising slur.

Standing this morning before Russian soldiers and tanks, in Red Square in Moscow, president Vladimir Putin used his Victory Day speech to justify the invasion of Ukraine. He told Russian soldiers that they were ‘fighting for the same thing their fathers and grandfathers did’ – for ‘the Motherland’.

There have been “anecdotal reports” that some Russian military members have refused orders from their superiors in Ukraine, according to a senior U.S. defense official.

The new details emanating from the Pentagon on Monday come as Russia continues its unsuccessful attempts to capture the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine, where Russian separatists and Ukrainian nationalists have fought for eight years.

… Europe has managed to reduce its need for Russian oil quickly for a couple of reasons. Oil can easily be delivered by tanker, not just pipelines, and it is relatively easy to find new supplies on the world market. The problem is that it is also relatively easy to find enough new buyers – and Russia has plenty – to offset a large part of the losses from an EU embargo.

Gas is different. Europe needs natural gas to provide heat in winter and to serve as feedstock for the world’s largest chemical industry, which accounts for a significant share of EU exports. And certain features of the natural-gas market will make it far more difficult and costlier to find alternatives to Russian supplies than it has been for oil.

Articles published on Lenta.ru on Victory Day accuse Putin of waging ‘bloodiest war of 21st century’

Two Russian journalists working for a popular pro-Kremlin website filled it with anti-war articles on Monday morning in a rare act of dissent as the country celebrated the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany.

The articles on Lenta.ru called President Vladimir Putin a “pitiful paranoid dictator” and accused him of waging “the bloodiest war of the 21st century”.

“We had to do it today. We wanted to remind everyone what our grandfathers really fought for on this beautiful Victory Day – for peace,” said 30-year-old Egor Polyakov, one of the two journalists.

KYIV, May 9 (Reuters) – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Monday that Kyiv would defeat Russia’s invasionand not give up a single piece of land,as he marked victory over Nazi Germany in World War Two.

Zelenskiy, in a powerful video address, commemorated the deaths of more than eight million Ukrainians in World War Two and said that Kyiv would not allow Moscow to appropriate the victory over Nazism for itself.

#Ukraine: A Russian tank was damaged by an air delivered improvised munition dropped from a drone of the 503rd Marine Battalion of Ukraine. pic.twitter.com/UU16ckYbdZ

— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) May 9, 2022

An intelligence officer holed up in Mariupol’s massive Azovstal steel factory has blasted the Ukraine government for leaving the citizens and soldiers on their own.

“We got zero support — no air support, no artillery or ground support. We were left on our own,” Ilya Samoilenko said, yet added that they are continuing to fight.

“We are basically here, dead men. Most of us know this and it’s why we fight so fearlessly,” he said.

Is this an expedient end to their problematic existence?

Berlin and other cities across Germany increased police patrols on Monday ahead of expected pro-Russia protests.

The demonstrations are happening to mark Victory Day on May 9, a holiday commemorating the Soviet military’s victory over Nazi Germany in 1945.

Tensions are running high this year over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, with authorities in Berlin banning both Russian and Ukrainian flags at memorial sites.

A clash of loyalties is dividing opinion among residents in Bakhmut – a town on the front line in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region.

Sometimes it slips out as a whisper. More often, it is hidden behind euphemisms and shrugs – and carefully ambivalent replies. And then, once in a while, a fiercely pro-Russian sentiment is simply blurted out, like the crack of a gunshot, here in the rolling green hills of the Donbas.

“This is Russian territory. Ukraine is the occupier here,” said a man in overalls, standing with a group of council workers. They had been clearing weeds in Bakhmut – a Ukrainian town currently within easy earshot of Russian artillery.