Russian troops have totally left the west side of Kyiv. Ukrainian troops have reached the Belarussian border west of the Dnipro river.
East of Kyiv the Russians are withdrawing and are no longer close to the capital. So for the first time since the war started, Kyiv is no longer under immediate threat.
The Ukrainian general staff has announced that there are no longer any Russians in Chernihiv oblast, but locals say that there are still Russians in the woods near the Russian border. These Russians may be in the process of evacuating. (Just a week ago Chernihiv was barely holding on and was in danger of being surrounded.)
There are still Russians close outside Sumy. It's believed that these troops are covering the withdrawl of Russian forces from closer to Kyiv and that they will withdraw when that is complete. Konotop has been reoccupied by the Ukrainians.
The situation around Kharkiv is still largely unchanged. The Russians don't seem to be withdrawing, but they aren't advancing either. The Russians are still shelling into Kharkiv. The Ukrainians have attacked the Russians in several places and the Russians are fighting back fiercely.
To the east of Kharkiv, fighting continues south of Izium. The Russians didn't advance there today and presumably are regrouping and resupplying after winning the Izium battle. These forces are expected to advance towards Sloviansk from the northwest.
In Luhansk oblast, Sievierodonetsk and its nearby towns are all under attack but are resisting. Street fighting in many places. These forces are in growing danger of being encircled.
In Donetsk oblast, the Russians, or perhaps their separatist allies, continue to attack Ukrainian lines without much success.
Approximately 1/3 of the regular Ukrainian army is in Luhansk and Donetsk where it was fighting the separatists prior to February 24 and Ukraine can't afford to lose these forces if they are cut off. This seems to be the main Russian objective at this point. They are pulling in all the forces that were originally tasked with capturing all of Ukraine and redeploying them to the coming battle in the east.
Mariupol continues to hold out. It appears that the remaining Ukrainian held portion has already been cut in half, one part in the near northeastern residential area and the other near the docks at the port. There is danger of the northeastern residential area being cut in two, resulting in three remaining pockets.
And in the south it's the Ukrainians advancing on Kherson from what appear to be two directions, though it's unclear how large this advance is or how much threat it represents to the Russians in Kherson. The Russians are hoping to create another separatist "republic" in Kherson, despite the hostility of most of the population, so apparently the Russians plan to keep hold of it as a buffer zone north of the Crimea (which the Russians value very much and want to protect).
The war isn't over but it's definitely seeing a major reorganization. Part I has to be considered a Ukrainian victory considering how smaller and (supposedly) weaker Ukraine so ably fought off the numerically and technologically superior Russians. And it's a humiliating revelation of the incompetence of the once-feared Russian military that couldn't even beat a middle rank power like Ukraine.
What is it that we want? Is it peace? Is it to spread democracy? There are 174 countries at war. Why are we inserting ourselves in this one and not the others?
Does anyone know?
Oh, great mighty YAZ. You must have some idea. What say you?
We probably are cornholing politically and sales penetrating some of the other battle zones in one sense or another, but government interests there receive less attention.
For instance:
The US, UK, France, Canada, etc have been supplying arms and technical assistance to the Saudi Arabia led coalition's military operations in the Yemeni Civil War.
The US has been[1] and is involved in the "Ethiopian" turmoils, yet like the above, it doesn't receive significant media coverage.
Western journalism's focus on the Russian invasion perhaps partly overlaps with reasons why Ukrainian refugees are welcomed in Europe[2], whereas there is resistance to accepting non-white, non-Christian migrants from other countries (the social-justice hypocrisy of the pretentious "systemic oppression" fixated West).
Then US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo urged de-escalation of the conflict and immediate action to restore peace, and emphasized the importance of protecting civilians. Then US President-elect Joe Biden's foreign policy adviser Antony Blinken expressed deep concern over the humanitarian crisis in Ethiopia, ethnic violence and threats to peace and security in the area. He called on the TPLF to protect civilians and take steps to end the conflict.
US Assistant Secretary of State for Africa Tibor Nagy condemned the Tigray People's Liberation Front for their rocket attacks against Asmara, calling it an "unjustifiable attacks against Eritrea ... its efforts to internationalize the conflict in Tigray."
On 27 February 2021, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken urged for the immediate withdrawal of Eritrean forces and Amhara regional forces from Tigray. He also asked the African Union and regional partners, to work with the United States to address the crisis in Tigray.
On 12 March, the US announced it would be resuming some aid to Ethiopia, which had previously been blocked by the Trump administration over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) dispute, but that security assistance programs would remain suspended due to concerns over the conflict in Tigray.
On 17 September, President Joe Biden signed a new executive order allowing Washington to take punitive sanctions against the governments of Ethiopia, Eritrea, the Tigray People's Liberation Front and the Amhara regional government if they play a role in prolonging the conflict, obstructing humanitarian access or commit serious human rights abuses.
On December 14, the US Government's Millennium Challenge Corporation terminated its threshold program with the government of Ethiopia, following the determination that Ethiopia is ineligible to receive foreign aid due to its human rights record.
On December 23, the US said it would remove Ethiopia, along with Guinea and Mali, from the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), effective January 1, 2022.
United States President Joe Biden met with Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta to discuss the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Tigray and the need to prevent further loss of life and to ensure humanitarian access.
I was thinking more along the lines of Caspian oil. It was touted as a strategic benefit to alleviate Russian’s gas-fueled leverage against NATO allies and further isolating Iran. They said that NATO’s role in the region should not be seen in isolation, but integrated with the EU, OSCE, UN, etc. It would be an umbrella to protect the pipelines. There are various maps of pipeline potentials created to show how Europe could access it. One through Ukraine, Georgia, and Azerbaijan, etc. It was part of Clinton’s energy policy.
It's not about freedom or democracy, that's for damn sure.
Surprise surprise - there is more than one pov re what was the 'White Helmets' brigade real agenda in Syria: https://piersrobinson.wordpress.com/2018...e-helmets/
Interesting to ponder why there was no such equivalent 'NGO' humanitarian outfit racing about in the rubble saving poster children as part of the huge number of slaughtered civilians during Iraq's methodical decimation.
Similarly for Libya. It does make some folks ponder a bit.
Regarding the West's 'double standards' re mass immigration, well despite huge efforts to expunge all traces, the kind of thing linked to below does get through to enough 'whities' to create 'clearly totally unjustified unease' about those enormous unending streams of immigrants making their way to Germany in particular a few years back: https://www.bitchute.com/video/kFuTWwNrwnPG/
The Russians are gone from the vicinity of Kyiv. They are entirely out of Chernihiv Oblast to the northeast. They are completing their withdrawl from Sumy Oblast, where Russian soldiers have temporarily remained to cover the withdrawl of their comrades. They should be entirely gone by tomorrow.
The Russians seem to have pulled back from the northern outskirts of Kharkiv, but they still maintain positions close to the city and well within artillery range.
Russian troops from around Kyiv are regrouping in southern Belarus and are being flown to Belgorod, across the border from Kharkiv. They are continuing to reorganize in Belgorod for the coming campaign in the east. But its noted that many of these units are short of equipment and some have taken pretty heavy casualties, so their combat effectiveness is in doubt.
The Russians won their battle at Izium and continue to take small villages in the area as the new troops flow in. Fuel and ammunition are also flowing in, in hopes of avoiding the severe logistics difficulties the first month of the war encountered, with many Russian vehicles abandoned along the road when they ran out of gas. A large Russian military buildup is taking place in Izium and immediately south.
It's pretty clear that their initial objective will be Slovyansk and Kramatorsk, where a big battle is expected in coming days. Assuming that the Russians win, it still isn't clear where these forces will head off to after that.
They can attack east (easiest), southeast to Donetsk (harder) or south towards Mariupol (hardest). But the rewards are proportional to the difficulty. Heading south will enable them to encircle all of the Ukrainian forces in the east. Heading to Donetsk will encircle some of them. Going east will just trap a minority of them. The Ukrainians have a significant fraction of their active-duty army (as compared to reserves) in the far east and subject to this encirclement.
A Russian victory at Slovyansk and Kramatorsk will present the Ukrainian command with the choice whether to withdraw those troops to save them, and in so doing cede the Donbas to the Russians. Or keep them where they are and perhaps watch their encirclement and defeat.
Mariupol is continuing to hold out but today the Russians announced the surrender of a Ukrainian Marine battalion with 200+ captured, so the end is nearing in that heroic city.
There haven't been any big developments in Kherson (Russian held) or Mykolaiv (Ukrainian). The Ukrainians continue probing, the Russians seem to be assuming defensive positions. It looks like they have gone as far as they are going to go, at least for the time being.
Video from the Ukraine defense ministry of bodies of shot civilians littering the streets of Bucha (Kyiv suburb)
And.... following a lead from a YT commenter... re last link in #345: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcQFsO_D...7ykymL235Y
Swizz Beatz - Poison Intro (Audio) ft. Áine Zion (nicely consistent-theme word association there)
Like I keep hinting - some folks might start putting 2+2 together and dimly perceive a *possible* situation where one immensely powerful ethnic/tribal grouping is cynically exploiting another ethnic/tribal demographic, for long-term strategic aims. Such aims not necessarily favoring either targeted for total destruction whities, or, once that's done and dusted, the peoples of color used as human battering rams towards that first intermediate goal. Friends/allies then will 'mysteriously' turn into enemies! The secret to success is taking things in carefully sequenced stages. Shalom!
YazataApr 6, 2022 05:05 AM (This post was last modified: Apr 7, 2022 05:03 AM by Yazata.)
Here's something kind of interesting. There are several aircraft tracking sites out there, and this one was tracking an RCAF (Royal Canadian Air Force) C-130 that flew out of Glasgow to Budapest. From there it flew to Macedonia, avoiding Serbian airspace. From Macedonia it flew to Rzeszow in Poland, a small city of about 200,000 in southeastern Poland not far from the Ukrainian border. Then it returned to Budapest.Since this map was compiled, it's believed that it or another Canadian C-130 just like it flew back down to Macedonia and back up to Poland, again ending up in Budapest. So there might be more than one of these Canadian aircraft performing this mission, whatever it is.
It's speculated that the Canadian transport planes are picking up Russian made military equipment from storage (in Macedonia?) and flying it to Poland for transfer to the Ukrainians.
The aircraft tracking sites have also been showing many United States and several British electronic intelligence aircraft flying looping racetrack patterns over both Poland and Romania as they intercept communications and observe the war in adjoining Ukraine. There are also refueling aircraft supporting these missions.
In other news, the Czech Republic ('Chesko' the locals call it, which is easier on the tongue than 'Czech Republic') has quietly given Ukraine as many as 40 tanks and armored personnel carriers. The tanks are old Soviet vintage T-72 tanks that may have been in storage, but they have been modernized since the 1980's. Most of Ukraine's tanks are T-72's, so crews can just jump in the Czech tanks and drive them away.
And in news that's probably even more important to Ukraine, both Slovakia and Chesko have quietly opened their military repair facilities to the Ukrainians. The Wall Street Journal points out that the Russians have been targeting these kinds of facilities all over Ukraine with jets and cruise missiles. Meanwhile the Ukrainians have been acquiring hundreds of vehicles captured from or left behind by the Russians. But many of these probably need work. The problem will be to get the vehicles from deep inside Ukraine to these countries hundreds of miles away during a war.
And here are Australian-made Bushmaster armored personnel vehicles being shipped out from Australia with Ukrainian insignias already painted on them
There have only been minor moves on the map today. A village taken or lost here or there. The Russians continue to build up their forces and logistics in the Izium area, but haven't advanced from there. They are completely gone from the vicinity of Kyiv and appear to have evacuated Sumy oblast as well.
But the Ukrainians have advised all civilians in Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts to evacuate westwards, in anticipation of a big Russian offensive there in coming days.
Again, no big changes on the map today. The Russians continue to regroup and resupply in preparation for a big battle in the east. Rather than withdrawing the forces the Ukainians have in the threatened areas, the Ukrainians are reinforcing them.
Mariupol continued to hold out, but there are indications that the Russians might be pressing the Ukrainian defenders into two or three pockets.
Apr 4, 2022 04:05 AM
(This post was last modified: Apr 4, 2022 05:18 PM by Yazata.)
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