Update from Ukraine | It is time to get out from Bakhmut | Ukraine starts the assault on the south

PRAY FOR UKRAINE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXCQw6nGjcg https://www.instagram.com/denys_pilot/

****NEW SUMMARY Military MAPS & COMMENTS here:

March 15, 2023 Invasion Day 384 – Summary The summary of the situation of Russian re-invasion to Ukraine covering the last 48 hours 2023 – 22:00 (Kyiv time).

https://militaryland.net/news/invasion-day-384-summary/

**** UKRAINIAN ARMY IS FORMING TWO SPECIALIZED BRIGADES March 15, 2023 Jerome News

Two additional brigades are reinforcing the combat capabilities of Ukrainian Ground Forces and Air Assault troops.

Ukrainian command has decided to form two brigades, 49th Artillery Brigade and 82nd AirAssault Brigade. While the first belongs to the Ground Forces of Ukraine, as any other artillery brigade, 82nd joins the Ukrainian elite Air Assault forces.

49th Artillery Brigade is a new artillery brigade of Ukrainian Ground Forces currently at the stage of formation. The brigade is under the command of Operational Command North.

82nd AirAssault Brigade is a new elite brigade of Ukrainian Air Assault Forces, currently finishing the last stage of formation and will soon be deployed to the front.

ARTICLE
Russia’s next civil war has already begun
Factions in the military establishment are vying for position, at the expense of Putin’s invasion effort
Richard Kemp 14 March 2023 • 8:17pm
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/03/14/russias-next-civil-war-has-already-begun/

One of the bloodiest battles in modern European history is taking place in Bakhmut, with reports of more than 1,000 soldiers dying in a single day. But more significantly for the Kremlin, it may also be the site of an extraordinary Russian civil war, playing out on Ukrainian soil between different factions. At the heart of it are two of the most significant parts of the Kremlin’s war machine: the Wagner Group and the Russian ministry of defence.

Their confrontation has been eight months in the making. For while his mercenaries have been at the forefront of the campaign to take Bakhmut, Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin has been waging a political battle of his own, to gain influence in the Kremlin. He seemingly believes he can use sheer military might in Ukraine – with the help of some 50,000 men – to prove himself as a Russian leader. Some think his ultimate goal is to usurp the Russian ministry of defence. Perhaps he wishes to bring all Russian forces under his personal command.

Since May last year, Prigozhin has been striking a public contrast with the Russian army’s humiliation on the battlefield. He openly brags about his own successes, while issuing damning public criticism of Russia’s top brass. He frequently alleges incompetence and even betrayal by Putin’s senior officials. In February, he went as far as to accuse Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu of treason for withholding ammunition from his troops.

As one might expect, the reaction from the ministry of defence has been unforgiving. A new report from the Institute for the Study of War says that Russian generals could be using the Bakhmut death trap as an opportunity “to deliberately expend both elite and convict Wagner forces… in an effort to weaken Prigozhin and derail his ambitions for greater influence over the Kremlin”.

In other words, they could be holding back Russian forces and depriving Wagner of ammunition in order to inflict maximum attrition on Prigozhin’s mercenaries. This would be an astonishingly self-interested strategy in the midst of an existential battle for the Russian regime and could be slowing down the advance on Bakhmut. It would mean that the Russian ministry of defence is now prioritising domestic power struggles over the invasion.

Such a zero-sum strategy could hardly be conducted without Putin’s blessing – and indeed it is just the latest in a series of moves by the ministry to diminish Prigozhin and remove Wagner from the order of battle.
Wagner, for example, has hitherto depended largely on convicts taken from Russian jails and labour camps, which make up 80 per cent of its forces in Ukraine. But at the start of the year, that source of recruits was cut off by the Kremlin, with the Russian army reportedly taking them for themselves.

These moves would correspond with Putin’s behaviour in the past. He’s been known to exploit the friction among leaders of the various parts of the defence establishment to ensure that their personal power remains limited – a somewhat similar tactic to that used by Hitler to keep in check the rival Wehrmacht and Waffen SS.

Early in the war, to the anger of Shoigu and General Gerasimov, the Russian president sided with Prigozhin, supporting Wagner with ministry of defence resources to alleviate the Russian army’s initial losses. But now, seeing the bombastic Wagner leader as a threat, Putin may have shifted gears. It appears to be Shoigu who has the upper hand again, with Prigozhin having his wings clipped at every opportunity. Even military victories he claims for Wagner have been formally attributed to the ministry of defence.

But while that trick has worked for Putin in the past, it is a big gamble this time – the risk being that he loses control of his disparate fighters. Other mercenary groups, including Shoigu’s own private military company and Ramzan Kadyrov’s Chechen army, are presumably watching and learning. It may also be too late to suppress Prigozhin, who enjoys notable support among top officials and is constantly lauded in the patriotic media.

Prigozhin’s popularity reached new heights last autumn when he gave public approval to the killing of a Wagner defector, who was then battered to death by a sledgehammer. If those are his tactics, Putin had better hope the civil war in Bakhmut doesn’t reach Moscow.

Colonel Richard Kemp is a former infantry commander

runaway!!!

VIDEOS

1. Retired colonel investigating war crimes vows Putin won’t escape accountability
CNN
14.8M subscribers
3-14-2023
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGWWQxVsDdE

2. Putin won’t live long enough to see the end of the Ukraine war, Russian state TV pundit fears #news
Buzztalk
3-15-2023
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/010GeQQfOvE

AF50602-F-019-B-4922-9982-813-DFB3-FACC9

PING!!!!! To this excellent Zeeper News consolidation thread!

Yes. “Starts the assault south” means they are running away. Might be a slaughter.

Loose lips sink ships. Do you think you should be telling the whole world that the Ukrainian troops are going to assault the south? Or is this a trick. Or maybe you want them to think it’s a trick. Or maybe it’s not a trick. Or maybe it is.

Race to find crashed US drone is ON: Moscow warns it WILL try to get its hands on downed $32m Reaper to secure propaganda coup as scramble to recover wreckage from Black Sea gets underway: US military said a Russian fighter jet clipped the propeller of the MQ-9 drone

Crash forced the US drone down over the Black Sea in a total loss of the aircraft
By Rachael Bunyan and Will Stewart for MailOnline
Published: 04:10 EDT, 15 March 2023 | Updated: 10:48 EDT, 15 March 2023
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11862029/Russia-claims-won-race-recover-downed-Reaper-drone-Black-Sea.html

The United States is in a race against time to recover an American drone downed by a Russian fighter jet in the Black Sea before it falls into Moscow’s hands, as fears mounted today that the war in Ukraine could escalate further.
The MQ-9 Reaper drone crashed after being intercepted by two Russian fighter jets on Tuesday morning, in what US officials have said was a deliberate act to take it out the skies, possibly in an attempt to seize its data.

Moscow said it would work to retrieve the wreckage of the $32million drone in what would be a propaganda coup for Vladimir Putin, after earlier warning that it will ‘consider any action with US weaponry as openly hostile’.

I don’t know whether we’ll be able to retrieve it or not but it has to be done. And we will certainly work on it,’ Russian Security Council secretary Nikolai Patrushev said in televised remarks on Wednesday.

Earlier, White House national security spokesman John Kirby confirmed the US was reviewing ‘imagery’ collected from the region, close to the frontlines of Putin’s on-going war in Ukraine which Russia invaded in February 2022.

He also said the UAV may never be recovered from the crash site, admitting that the Reaper wreckage is still in the Black Sea, adding that US officials have told Moscow to be more careful when flying in international air space around American assets.

Russia’s Ambassador to the US, Anatoly Antonov, accused the US of committing an ‘act of provocation’ after the $32 million US surveillance drone was intercepted by two Su-27 fighter jets in international airspace.

Antonov warned Washington it must stop ‘hostile’ flights near his country’s border - or face the consequences.
But the US remained defiant and vowed to continue to fly their aircraft where permitted over the Black Sea. Kirby said earlier that Russia will ‘fail’ in their attempts to ‘deter’ Washington from doing so.

‘We don’t need to have some sort of check-in with the Russians before we fly in international airspace. There’s no requirement to do that nor do we do it,’ Kirby said.
Washington summoned Antonov over the incident.

The US has said that two Russian Su-27 fighters struck the propeller of the American drone, but Antonov has dismissed these claims. Instead, he said the drone manoeuvered sharply and crashed into the water following an encounter with Russian fighter jets that had been scrambled to intercept it near Crimea.

But the US European Command said two Russian Su-27 fighters intercepted the unmanned MQ-9 Reaper over international waters and one clipped its propeller.
Prior to that, the Su-27s dumped fuel on the MQ-9 and flew in front of it several times for 30 to 40 minutes in ‘a reckless, environmentally unsound and unprofessional manner’, the US European Command said.

The incident, which added to Russia-US tensions over Moscow’s war in Ukraine, is believed to be the first time since the height of the Cold War that a US aircraft has been brought down after an encounter with a Russian warplane.
State Department spokesman Ned Price slammed the incident as a ‘brazen violation of international law’ and said the US summoned Antonov to lodge a protest and the US ambassador to Russia, Lynne Tracy, has made similar representations in Moscow.

General James B. Hecker, commander of US Air Forces Europe and Air Forces Africa, said the MQ-9 aircraft was ‘conducting routine operations in international airspace when it was intercepted and hit by a Russian aircraft, resulting in a crash and complete loss of the MQ-9’.
He added that ‘in fact, this unsafe and unprofessional act by the Russians nearly caused both aircraft to crash’.

The MQ-9 includes a ground control station and satellite equipment and has a 66ft (20m) wingspan. It is capable of carrying munitions, but Pentagon spokesman Brigadier General Pat Ryder would not say whether the drone was armed.
He said it appeared the Russian aircraft was also damaged in the collision, but the US has confirmed that it did land, although Ryder would not say where.

‘This incident demonstrates a lack of competence in addition to being unsafe and unprofessional,’ Ryder said.
Russia’s Defence Ministry insisted the US drone was flying over the Black Sea near Crimea and intruded in an area that was declared off-limits by Russia as part of its invasion of Ukraine, causing the military to scramble fighters to intercept it.

‘As a result of a sharp manoeuver, the MQ-9 drone went into unguided flight with a loss of altitude and crashed into the water,’ it said. ‘The Russian fighters didn’t use their weapons, didn’t come into contact with the unmanned aerial vehicle, and they safely returned to their base.’

Moscow has repeatedly protested about US intelligence flights close to the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia seized from Ukraine in 2014 and illegally annexed.

The Kremlin claims that by providing weapons to Ukraine and sharing intelligence information with Kyiv, the US and its allies have effectively become engaged in the conflict.
Ambassador Antonov warned today: ‘We assume that the United States will refrain from further speculation in the media and stop flights near Russian borders. We consider any action with the use of US weaponry as openly hostile.’
But Mr Kirby vowed that the US would continue its missions in the area over the Black Sea.

‘If the message is that they want to deter or dissuade us from flying, and operating in international airspace, over the Black Sea, then that message will fail,’ Kirby said.
He added: ‘We’re going to continue to fly and operate in international airspace over international waters. The Black Sea belongs to no one nation.’

Mr Kirby added that the State Department ‘will be speaking directly with their Russian counterparts, and expressing our concerns over this unsafe and unprofessional intercept’.
The US European Command said the incident followed a pattern of dangerous actions by Russian pilots while interacting with American and allied aircraft over international airspace, including over the Black Sea.

‘These aggressive actions by Russian aircrew are dangerous and could lead to miscalculation and unintended escalation,’ it warned.

General David Berger, commandant of the Marine Corps, said this type of collision is his greatest concern, both in that part of Europe as well as in the Pacific.
‘Probably my biggest worry both there and in the Pacific is an aggressive Russia or China pilot or vessel captain, or something gets too close, doesn’t realize where they are, and causes a collision,’ Berger said, in response to a question at a National Press Club event Tuesday.
It comes as there were calls in Moscow for the so far unnamed Su-27 pilot to be given a top state honour and cash rewards for downing the US drone.

Russian Lieutenant-General Andrey Gurulev led praise for the pilot and called for more action to neutralise drones flying near Crimea, which are seen as helping Ukraine to hit targets.

‘Patriots are rejoicing over the downing of the drone,’ he said. ‘My friends, I can assure you that everyone is rejoicing.

‘Everyone is rejoicing because this is probably one of the key moments in our special [military] operation. The armed forces of the Russian Federation have shown that the country’s patience is not infinite.

‘And this so-called incident is probably the key one…because those US intelligence assets and their satellites are giving information to the Ukrainian army today.’

He urged illegal action against AWACS, reconnaissance and communication satellites, including Starlinks.

Gurulev - a prominent pro-Putin TV propagandist - said: ‘So there is something to do to put all these reconnaissance brigades in their place. But no one doubts the heroism of the pilot. No doubt he will receive a worthy state award.’
One poll on a pro-war Telegram channel said the pilot should be made a rouble millionaire, with a cash prize of £10,900.
PolitNavigator Telegram channel said the Russian navy were ‘busy picking up the wreckage’, which US forces were also seeking to recover.

‘Some of the fragments were fished out of the water,’ said the report. There are suggestions that other debris from the drone had sunk.

As fighting continued in Ukraine, a Russian missile struck an apartment building on Tuesday in the eastern city of Kramatorsk, killing at least one person and wounding nine others in one of the major urban strongholds the Donetsk region.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky posted a video showing gaping holes in the façade of the low-rise building, which bore the brunt of the strike that damaged nine apartment blocks, a kindergarten, a bank branch and two cars, said regional Governor Pavlo Kyrylenko.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, speaking with workers at a helicopter factory in southern Siberia, again cast the conflict in Ukraine as an existential one for Russia.
‘For us, it’s not a geopolitical task,’ Putin said, ‘It’s the task of survival of Russian statehood and the creation of conditions for the future development of our country.’
Russia had welcomed a Chinese peace proposal, but Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Kyiv’s refusal to talk leaves Moscow with only military options.

‘We must achieve our goals,’ Peskov told reporters. ‘Given the current stance of the Kyiv regime, now it’s only possible by military means.’

The Russian onslaught has focused on the devastated eastern city of Bakhmut, where Kyiv’s troops have been fending off attacks for seven months and which has become a symbol of resistance, as well as a focal point of the war.

Zelensky discussed Bakhmut with his military top brass and they were unanimous in their determination to face down the Russian onslaught, according to the presidential office.
‘The defensive operation in (Bakhmut) is of paramount strategic importance to deterring the enemy. It is key for the stability of the defense of the entire front line,’ said Valerii Zaluzhnyi, the commander in chief of Ukraine’s armed forces.

Putin Officials Are Secretly Against Ukraine War, Ex-Spy Chief Says
By David Brennan On 3/15/23 at 10:17 AM EDT
https://www.newsweek.com/putin-officials-secretly-against-ukraine-war-ex-spy-chief-1787942

Russian President Vladimir Putin is doubling down on his invasion of Ukraine, against the wishes of at least some of his top officials and influential oligarchs, according to one former NATO intelligence chief.

Mikk Marran, who headed Estonia’s Foreign Intelligence Service from January 2016 until October 2022, told Newsweek that Putin’s grip on power remains strong, even if some of those under him are entirely opposed to the war on Ukraine.

“I think that during my days at the service and even now, Putin has had quite a good grip on power,” explained Marran, who now serves as the CEO of the Estonian State Forestry Management Centre.

But not all is rosy for the Russian leader, who has used his invasion of Ukraine to tighten control over domestic dissidents and allies alike.

“I think that the tensions are growing; definitely, we can see some signs there,” said Marran. “There have been officials in the administration who have been very critical of, or against, the war. I can’t tell you their names, but there were, and are, officials inside the Kremlin that are totally against the war.”

One senior Russian official has publicly disavowed the war in former United Nations representative Boris Bondarev, who resigned in May declaring he was “ashamed of my country.”

Even before the war, Moscow’s top diplomat Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov “repeatedly petitioned for permission to retire,” according to veteran Russia-watcher Mark Galeotti.

The Washington Post reported in December there is “huge frustration among the people around him,” citing one unnamed Russian billionaire who is in contact with top-ranking officials.

“He clearly doesn’t know what to do,” the source said.
Still, unhappy insiders seem committed to weathering the storm, or at least to waiting for a better moment to move.

Influential figures within Russia’s business community are unhappy, Marran said. On Wednesday, reports emerged that 15 top businessmen withdrew from the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs which had been slated to meet with Putin later this week. Among them, according to RBC, are billionaires Araz Agalarov, Leonid Fedun, and Alisher Usmanov.

“There are also oligarchs that are not very happy with the war,” Marran said. “We see some tensions, but I wouldn’t say that they can rock the boat too much at this point. The boat is rocking, kind of, but still, I think Putin has quite a good grip on power.”

“In public, of course, they don’t say anything,” Marran said of the silent dissidents. “This would be a kind of death sentence for them, and for their career. It would not be a career enhancing thing to say. But in private conversations, in smaller groups, they were quite vocal.”

Most of the power, Marran said, still resides within the Kremlin rather than among its powerful oligarch partners. Influential figures like Yevgeny Prigozhin have leveraged the war to their own political advantage, but most of Russia’s billionaires are more concerned with their wealth.

“I would say that the Kremlin power circle has more impact than the business people,” Marran said. “The oligarchs might be unhappy but they’re still businessman, worried about their businesses.”

“In a case where we had more pressure from inside the Kremlin, from the intelligence services, then we could see something forming against Putin. But at this point, I don’t see it happening in the near-term future.”

Newsweek has contacted the presidential office by email to request comment.

One year into the full-scale invasion, Russia’s anti-war movement has been suppressed, the country’s civil society and media sphere have proven too neutered to foment political opposition, and Moscow’s lucrative fossil fuel export profits have shored up the country’s increasingly isolated economy.

Rumors of Putin’s terminal illness have thus far proved unfounded, and the leader’s grip on the levers of power leave little room for Kremlin palace intrigue, even after battlefield defeats in Ukraine.

“Russia is moving towards a total dictatorship,” Estonia’s Foreign Intelligence Service said in its 2023 report. “The prospects for the current regime collapsing and the country democratising are slim despite the problems caused by the war and Western sanctions. On the contrary, an even more radical faction is rising to the fore in Russia’s ruling elite.”

Putin and his top allies plan to outlast Ukraine (or more importantly Kyiv’s Western partners) betting that international revulsion will ease and business interests will eventually trump political concerns, as they did after his land grabs in Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine in 2014.

Sanctions have not undercut the Russian economy as viciously as hoped, though recent figures show a ballooning budget deficit in part due to the European Union-G7 oil price cap, which some member states are already lobbying to slash further.

“The Russian economy is doing really, really badly,” Marran said. “The financial status of the country is quite bad. Of course, Russia will never be bankrupt because it has huge resources—I mean oil and gas and so on—but still the financial system is not in a good place. And that will be noticed probably sometime in the future by the Russian population.”

“We will see how it develops.”

VIDEOS

1. The ‘Wagner’ PMC suffers great losses in assault attempts in the Donetsk region of Ukraine
UATV English
383K subscribers
Mar 15, 2023
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYnvXUYGRhY
The fighting on the eastern front line of Ukraine is harsher every day. The ‘Wagner’ mercenaries and regular troops of the Russian Federation conduct assault attempts round the clock. While Ukrainian defenders hold the city and surrounding areas, the high military commands of the Ukrainian Armed Forces decided to hold on to the city while there’s still the ability to. Hear and see the details from our correspondents in the report.

2. Today(Mar 16)Ukraine Snipers brutal overrun 720 Russian Mercenary at hided to flee Bakhmut Battalion
ARMED BN
229K subscribers
Mar 14, 2023
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDzatWN3HTQ

Today : Ukraine Snipers brutal overrun 720 Russian Mercenary at hided to flee Bakhmut Battalion.

Body camera footage shows the moment Ukrainian soldiers burst forward in a charge across no man’s land, pinning down enemies before breaching a position near Bakhmut. Gunfire is heard as members of the 24th Assault Battalion Aidar move across open ground, suppressing opposing forces with a spray of automatic fire as they push towards cover.

The men take brief respite, stacking up against a wall as another soldier looks to breach one of the buildings. Body camera footage shows the moment Ukrainian soldiers burst forward in a charge across no man’s land, pinning down enemies before breaching a position near Bakhmut. Gunfire is heard as members of the 24th Assault Battalion Aidar move across open ground, suppressing opposing forces with a spray of automatic fire as they push towards cover.

Are they praying for MORE MONEY FROM THE AMERICAN TAXPAYERS?

ARTICLE

The Ugly Battle of Bakhmut Is Nearing Its End | Opinion
Daniel R. DePetris , fellow, Defense Priorities
NEWSWEEK
On 3/9/23 at 8:00 AM EST
https://www.newsweek.com/ugly-battle-bakhmut-nearing-its-end-opinion-1786520

Bakhmut, a mid-sized city in eastern Ukraine that used to boast approximately 70,000 residents, isn’t an important piece of real estate. But Ukraine and Russia have been fighting pitched battles in the vicinity since the summer, and the city has taken on symbolic significance for the combatants. For the Russians, Bakhmut represents the biggest prize since June, when their forces captured Severodonetsk and Lysychansk after weeks of heavy bombardment. For the Ukrainians, Bakhmut is the epitome of its resistance against the Russian onslaught—yet one more example of the inspiring David and Goliath story that has categorized the war in the minds of many. To underscore how important the defense of Bakhmut is for Kyiv, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky handed over a battle-flag from Ukrainian troops stationed in the city to then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi after his address to a joint session of Congress last December.

Yet the battlefield dynamics in this particular area of the 600-mile frontline is slowly moving in Russia’s direction. Russian forces, including the mercenaries and jailhouse cannon-fodder that make up the Wagner Group, are close to surrounding the remaining Ukrainian defenders. The vise is getting tighter. The only major highway to the west is in range of Russian artillery fire, forcing the Ukrainians to use country roads to resupply and evacuate the wounded. The Ukrainians have reportedly withdrawn from the eastern part of the city. Yevgeny Prigozhin, chief of the Wagner Group, is claiming control over parts of Bakhmut, a small consolation prize after months in which his mercenaries have been cut down.

Despite Zelensky’s vow to fight for as long as it takes, it’s likely only a matter of time before Bakhmut is surrendered to the Russians. Even so, Zelensky doesn’t intend to just hand the city over. “We understand that after Bakhmut they could go further,” Zelensky told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, referring to Russian forces. “They could go to Kramatorsk, they could go to Sloviansk, it would be open road for the Russians after Bakhmut to other towns in Ukraine, in the Donetsk direction.” Of course, this is precisely what the Russians are hoping for; Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, who has taken a beating by hardliners such as Prigozhin, is confident Ukraine’s defensive lines in the Donbas will wear thin after Bakhmut is taken.

The reality, however, could be very different. The Ukrainians haven’t been sitting on their hands all this time waiting for Russia to move westward. Instead, Kyiv has spent months building additional defensive lines to the west, using the hilly terrain in the area to its advantage. Assuming the Russians take Bakhmut, they will likely try another offensive in the direction of Kramatorsk. But such operations will be enormously costly for an army that has already sustained 200,000 casualties. Up to 30,000 Russian troops may have been killed in the battle of Bakhmut alone over the past six months. Unless Russia can throw an unlimited number of convicts into the meat grinder, nobody should assume Moscow has the capacity to take the entire Donbas region.

The war, now in its second year, is at the stage where the most awful type of attrition is playing out. Russian President Vladimir Putin has a lot more men at his disposal and could execute another troop mobilization if the situation is desperate enough to require one. The Ukrainians can’t compete with Moscow in terms of numbers. Kyiv lost some of its best elite units in the early months of the conflict, and many of those now fighting heroically were rushed into battle with less than ideal training (to be fair, the same goes for Russia). Ukraine is experiencing extensive strain due to the war, having lost 30 percent of its economy last year, and it’s hard to see the situation getting any better as the fighting goes on. Zelensky is also at the mercy of his foreign supporters; some of the very weapons platforms, ammunition, and artillery shells Ukraine needs for future counteroffensive are in increasingly short supply in the West.

Ukrainian officials must take all of these factors into account as they make plans in the days, weeks, and months to come. It is precisely because of this long, inconclusive attritional battle ahead why some military analysts, like Michael Kofman of the Center for Naval Analyses, are questioning whether sticking it out in Bakhmut is the best use of the Ukrainian army’s resources. As Kofman tweeted after a recent trip to the city in late February, “I think the tenacious defense of Bakhmut achieved a great deal, expending [Russian] manpower and ammunition. But strategies can reach points of diminishing returns, and given [Ukraine] is trying to husband resources for an offensive, it could impede the success of a more important operation.”

Kofman isn’t alone. The Biden administration has been urging Ukraine to preserve its manpower and equipment in order to boost the chance of a successful counteroffensive later in the spring. Part of this obviously entails giving up Bakhmut, regardless of how emotionally draining such a pullout would be. The Ukrainian army’s tactical withdrawal from some of the destroyed city, days after reaffirming its intention to defend it for as long as it takes, suggests that the military leadership is coming around to the U.S. perspective.

The hard decision to sacrifice Bakhmut will be terrible for Ukraine’s morale. But it’s probably the right call given the uncertain future and resource constraints Ukrainian officials are forced to handle.

Who cares about Putins KGB-style propaganda machine?
Who cares about the West Propaganda machine?

We must think with our own brains, right?

What matters is that Russia has invaded a sovereign nation.
It has to get out. Borders must be respected.

If we tolerate Russia to rape Ukrainian borders then we also want our own American borders to be raped as well.

If you want to protect Americas southern border against the invasion from Mexico you must ALSO support the respect for Ukraine’s borders.

The Ukrainians are dying right now in their effort to prevent Russia to take over their homes and families. THAT is patriotism. THAT is conservatism. THAT is what is means to be a true RIGHT-WINGER.

“What matters is that Russia has invaded a sovereign nation.
It has to get out. Borders must be respected.

If we tolerate Russia to rape Ukrainian borders then we also want our own American borders to be raped as well.

If you want to protect Americas southern border against the invasion from Mexico you must ALSO support the respect for Ukraine’s borders.

The Ukrainians are dying right now in their effort to prevent Russia to take over their homes and families. THAT is patriotism. THAT is conservatism. THAT is what is means to be a true RIGHT-WINGER.”

I appreciate & thank you for your excellent summation.

—> We must think with our own brains, right?

Apparently, not Zeepers. In Zeeperville, coins are so thin they only have one side…. String so short it has but one end.

—> Borders must be respected.

Borders have changed in Europe for thousands of years. Nothing new.

—> If we tolerate Russia to rape Ukrainian borders then we also want our own American borders to be raped as well.

Apparently, back to point one again!

—> The Ukrainians are dying right now in their effort to prevent Russia to take over their homes and families. THAT is patriotism. THAT is conservatism. THAT is what is means to be a true RIGHT-WINGER.

The actor Zelensky is willing to sacrifice Ukrainians.
Ukrainians have been duped.

The Costs of Not Supporting Ukraine Far Outweigh the Costs of Supporting It | Opinion
Mark N. Katz , professor of government and politics, George Mason University Schar School of Policy and Government
On 3/15/23 at 8:00 AM EDT
https://www.newsweek.com/costs-not-supporting-ukraine-far-outweigh-costs-supporting-it-opinion-1787082?spot_im_redirect_source=pitc

While there was initially strong bipartisan support for massive American military assistance to Ukraine at the start of the war, a growing number of Americans—especially some (but by no means all) Republicans—now believe that Washington is giving too much to Kyiv. Those who think this way have cited several objections. These include that it costs too much, that money spent on Ukraine means less available for a possible confrontation with China over Taiwan, that the Europeans aren’t paying their fair share, and that such massive American support for Ukraine risks the possibility of a direct Russian-American confrontation.

There is no doubt that American support for Ukraine has been highly expensive. But what also must be considered is what the cost to America and its position in the world would be of reducing or ending this support. The U.S. could incur far, far greater costs if Washington curtails—and especially if it ends—its admittedly expensive military assistance to Kyiv.

While many countries have provided military and other support for Ukraine, America has shouldered the main burden of doing so. If this aid came to an end, Ukrainians would undoubtedly fight on for as long as they could, but Russian forces would be in a far stronger position to hold onto Ukrainian territory they have already seized and to take even more. A decline in American support for Ukraine would reinforce Russian President Vladimir Putin’s view that America and the West will tire of the conflict and withdraw from it, leaving Ukraine to his tender mercies.
Even continuing American support for Ukraine but at reduced levels risks Putin concluding that he can hold on to all Ukrainian territory Russian forces are now occupying and that the West will pressure Kyiv into accepting a settlement to the conflict in which Ukraine has to make concessions to Russia. Such a settlement, of course, would then give Putin the time he needs to rebuild his depleted forces and launch another attack.

The argument that American support for Ukraine somehow distracts Washington from preparing for a conflict involving China is an odd one. Massive American support for Ukraine, which has enabled it to stoutly resist Russian aggression, must give Beijing pause that the U.S. might give massive support to Taiwan to resist an attack from China. Reducing or ending American support for Ukraine, by contrast, could only raise hopes in Beijing that there would also be a limit to Washington’s support for Taiwan.

While some European governments have given a great deal of support to Ukraine, it is true that Europe as a whole has been less supportive of Kyiv than Washington. Since the war in Ukraine impacts European security even more immediately than it does America’s, some in Washington think that this is unfair to the U.S. Perhaps it is, but that is not the point. The reality is that less American support for Ukraine is more likely to result in less—not more—European support for Kyiv. And diminished support from both America and Europe will result in diminished Ukrainian capacity to resist Russian aggression.

Some have warned that a desperate Putin might launch a nuclear attack against Ukraine. A direct U.S.-Russia confrontation, especially involving nuclear weapons, is not something that Washington wants. But it is not something Moscow wants either. Whatever else he may be, Putin is not suicidal. While he has raised the specter of nuclear war, he has done so as a means of limiting Western support for Ukraine. The Biden administration’s response of continuing to aid Ukraine and warning Russia about the consequences of using nuclear weapons has so far been successful, while reducing American aid to Ukraine seems guaranteed to induce Putin to continue raising the possibility of nuclear war as a means of reducing Western assistance even further. In other words: Less American assistance to Ukraine will not necessarily induce Putin to stop raising the specter of nuclear war.

While the fall of Kabul was bad for America’s image, reducing military support to a government whose forces were unwilling and unable to defend it is quite different from reducing military support to a government whose forces have proven that they are willing and able to do so. As horrible as Taliban rule has been for Afghans, withdrawing U.S. forces from Kabul was a form of cutting U.S. losses from a venture that had long proven to be unsuccessful. But if the U.S. limits or ends support to a nation that is willing to defend itself, then every government allied to the U.S. will have to consider whether the U.S. would defend it from attack despite any treaty obligations (which ultimately cannot be enforced but rely on the belief that the U.S. will honor them to be effective), or whether they need to cut their own anticipated losses by trying to make a deal with their attackers by trying to appease them. And that, as we know from the British and French agreement with Adolf Hitler at Munich in 1938, may only succeed in postponing, not preventing, an attack.

The costs America has incurred through supporting Ukraine so strongly have been great. But the costs America would incur through reducing, much less ending, support for Ukraine would be far, far greater.

Total bilateral aid commitments to Ukraine as a percentage of donor gross domestic product (GDP) between January 24, 2022 and January 15, 2023, by country :

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1303450/bilateral-aid-to-ukraine-in-a-percent-of-donor-gdp/

Russians attack a city and if they succeed they capture rubble.