[SpeedyInTexas]

Ukrainian Tank losses Running Total: 695

Ukrainian Artillery losses Running Total: 424

RuZZian Tank losses Running Total: 2513
December 2023 – 9
November 2023 – 67
October 2023 – 108
September 2023 – 57
August 2023 – 86
July 2023 – 113
June 2023 – 73
May 2023 – 90
April 2023 – 5
March 2023 - 127
February 2023 – 118
January 2023 – 61
December 2022 – 76
November 2022 – 105
October 2022 – 212
September 2022 - 217
August 2022 – 74
July 2022 – 108
June 2022 – 67
May 2022 – 148
April 2022 – 243
Feb 24 - March 2022 – 350

RuZZian Artillery losses Running Total: 940
December 2023 - 2
November 2023 - 25
October 2023 - 77
September 2023 - 48
August 2023 - 67
July 2023 - 56
June 2023 - 47
May 2023 - 43
April 2023 - 24
March 2023 - 37
February 2023 – 41
January 2023 – 31
December 2022 – 19
November 2022 – 55
October 2022 – 64
September 2022 - 73
August 2022 – 21
July 2022 – 21
June 2022 – 18
May 2022 – 20
April 2022 – 52
Feb 24 - March 2022 – 110

[SpeedyInTexas]

Previous day’s thread: https://freerepublic.com/focus/bloggers/4201172/posts

Summarizing this war:

A tragedy for Ukraine.
A disaster for RuZZia.
A strategic win for the USA.

“Why Internet Trolls Do What They Do and How to Spot Russian Fakes”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLtBzvw0—0

“Here is the best-kept secret about U.S. military aid to Ukraine: Most of the money is being spent here in the United States. That’s right: Funds that lawmakers approve to arm Ukraine are not going directly to Ukraine but being used stateside to build new weapons or to replace weapons sent to replace weapons sent to Kyiv from U.S. stockpiles. Of the $68 billion in military and related assistance Congress has approved since Russia invaded Ukraine, almost 90 percent is going to Americans, one analysis found.”

https://twitter.com/TheDeadDistrict/status/1730119780873441750

[marcusmaximus]

Russian Su-24M bomber shot down over Snake Island, — Ukrainian Air Force.

[Kazan]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOok6dgn5W4

Update on the conflict in Ukraine for December 3, 2023…

- ,b.Russian forces continue to make incremental gains along the line of contact including in Marinka, southwest of Donetsk City as well as in Avdeevka outside Donetsk City;

- Ukrainian President Vlodymr Zelensky announces Ukraine is on the defensive, an oblique admission that various Ukrainian offensives have failed and that future offensives are not feasible;

- Continued admissions come from across the West of an inability to ramp up military industrial production and specifically in relation to artillery shell production; ,p. - FPV (first person view) drones are not an adequate replacement for artillery shells, however they have created dilemmas on both sides in regards to anti-access area denial (A2AD) capabilities;

- Because of Ukraine’s ability to acquire even small amounts of artillery shells, FPV drones, and landmines, Russian offensives will require slow, methodical approaches focused on attrition to avoid large numbers of casualties and equipment losses;

- Despite claims that Russia is already suffering such losses because of operations around Avdeevka, pro-Western “Mediazona” shows increased Russian losses, but nowhere near the scale Ukraine’s General Staff are claiming;

[BeauBo]

The Guardian (UK) reports:

“Israeli forces have reported the most intense day of fighting in Gaza since the ground attack began nearly six weeks ago, with offensives stepped up in northern and southern Gaza...

...Amid heavy combat in key urban areas, including around Khan Younis, Hamas said there would be no further return of hostages until Israel’s “aggression against Gaza stopped”.

The UN said “some of the heaviest shelling in Gaza so far” took place between Sunday and Monday afternoons...

...The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said on Tuesday they had mounted an attack into the “heart” of Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza, and that paratroopers and navy commandos had raided the Hamas general security headquarters there. Heavy fighting was also reported in Shujai’iya, another Hamas stronghold in the north.

The IDF spokesperson Lt Col Richard Hecht said the fighting in the north had been “close-quarter and face-to-face” amid building-to-building combat.

At the same time, the bombing of Gaza’s second city, Khan Younis, in the south of the coastal strip, intensified before an expected ground incursion. Israeli tanks were reported to be at the entrance to the city. Armoured vehicles were reported to have taken up positions on the southern section of the main north-south highway running through Gaza and to be firing on Palestinians trying to move through the area in cars or on foot.

“We are in the heart of Jabaliya, in the heart of Shujai’iya, and now also in the heart of Khan Younis,” the commander of the IDF southern command, Maj Gen Yaron Finkelman, said.

“We are in the most intense day since the beginning of the ground operation – in terms of terrorists killed, the number of firefights and the use of firepower from the land and air. We intend to continue to strike and secure our accomplishments.”

The IDF has ordered the evacuation of a fifth of Khan Younis, an area that was home to 117,000 people before an influx of displaced people from northern Gaza arrived following the start of the current conflict in October.”

[BeauBo]

Kyiv Post reports:

“While more monuments to the war in Ukraine are being erected in Russia, those commemorating victims of Soviet-era repression – including those of racial minorities – are slowly being dismantled, as reported by The Moscow Times on Monday.

Since Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion the Russian human rights organization “International Memorial” says that at least 23 such monuments have been vandalized or simply taken down across the country – from St. Petersburg to Russia’s far east capitals.

Those included a granite cross commemorating persecuted Poles in St. Petersburg’s Levashovo Memorial Cemetery, a stone structure commemorating exiled Poles in the eastern Siberian city of Yakutsk, and numerous plaques in Moscow commemorating victims of the Gulags, the penal colony system in which large numbers of dissidents were consigned.

“We are certain that all of these actions are sponsored by the government one way or another,” said Alexandra Polivanova from International Memorial.”

[BeauBo]

Putin knows how to steal.

ISW reports:

“Russian occupation authorities are reportedly intensifying their seizure of Ukrainian property in occupied Berdyansk, Donetsk Oblast.

Ukrainian Berdyansk City Head Viktoria Halitsyna stated on December 4 that representatives from the Russian Ministry of Property and Land Legal Relations created commissions to determine “ownerless property” through an arbitration court in Russia after which Russian occupation authorities can take control over, auction, or privately sell the property.”

[ETCM]

Following the Putin model, Venezuela’s Socialist Marxist dictator Nicolas Maduro claims to annex it oil rich neighbor, Guyana. With recent discoveries by US giant Exxon-Mobil, Guyana has the largest proven oil reserves per capita in the world.

[BeauBo]

Newsweek reports:

"Two dozen Russian soldiers have allegedly been killed by a Ukrainian partisan group who claimed it offered them poisoned vodka and other food items in occupied Crimea.

A partisan group calling itself the "Crimea Combat Seagulls" said in a post to Telegram over the weekend that it had killed 24 Russian soldiers and hospitalized 11 others after giving them the poisoned food and drinks in Simferopol, Crimea's second-largest city...

...The Crimea Combat Seagulls boasted in a Telegram post on Saturday that dozens of Russian troops had been duped by "nice girls" into accepting "goodies" laced with arsenic and strychnine at a military checkpoint, according to The Kyiv Post. The group urged others to emulate them by also poisoning Russians in Crimea "like cockroaches.""

[ETCM]

Global Hawk flying south over Jordan, heading toward KSA. IMHO, likely watching Houthis and readying to strike any missile launch sites. IMHO, we should cut out the middle man and just hit Iran instead of their puppets.