Posted on 03/05/2023 7:37:18 AM PST by dennisw
Ukraine will keep renewing efforts to retake the land it controlled prior to 2014 if Russia does not continue fighting, according to the chief of the Wagner group of mercenary fighters, Yevgeny Prigozhin.
"I am absolutely sure that Ukraine, with the help of the NATO bloc, will break through these 'red lines' and return those territories that belonged to it until 2014," Prigozhin said in a statement posted to Telegram via his company's page on Saturday.
"There is no doubt about it," he added, saying war would then "start again." Such a conflict may "turn out to be even more tragic and bloody than the first. Therefore, we need to fight for Russia here and now," the oligarch known as "Putin's chef" said.'
Prigozhin is a prominent and outspoken voice among Russia's elite and an associate of Russian President Vladimir Putin. However, he has heavily criticized Russia's conventional military forces and Moscow's defense ministry.
Prigozhin's fighters have been heavily involved in Russian operations to take control of the eastern Donetsk city of Bakhmut, which has been under intense bombardment for months.
The "most advanced and prepared elements" of the Wagner paramilitary outfit have fought in assault operations around the city, the Institute for the Study of War think tank said
The ISW said Wagner mercenaries, along with Russia's armed forces, look to have set themselves up for a "turning movement," which would force Kyiv's forces to abandon their defensive positions in the devastated city.
Citing Russian sources, the think tank said Wagner Group fighters may have progressed through eastern and northeastern Bakhmut to create this "tactically challenging turning movement in urban areas" in the north of the city.
-———>>>>>>>>>
This is a change from encirclement of the city, which the ISW and the British defense ministry previously evaluated as the Russian strategy.
On Sunday, the General Staff of Ukraine’s Armed Forces said Russia was attempting to “surround” Bakhmut, but Kyiv’s forces had fended off the attacks.
On Saturday, the British defense ministry said Bakhmut was under “increasingly severe pressure,” and Ukraine’s resupply routes were becoming more and more limited. Kyiv had sent in elite units to back up its fighters in the city, the ministry added.
The remaining residents of Bakhmut are now fleeing on foot, the Associated Press reported on Saturday. The city had a pre-war population of around 75,000 people.
I do not predict a long and healthy life for this man....
I think he hit the nail on the head.
What Russia really is saying: “Get us out of this war but let us keep what we stole before”.
What the female prime minster of Estonia has to say about Russian negotiating strategy>>>
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https://www.politico.com/news/2022/02/01/estonia-prime-minister-sanctions-moscow-00004082#:~:text=%E2%80%9CThey%20use%20this%20old%20Soviet%20type%20of%20negotiation,never%20belonged%20to%20you.%20Then%20second%2C%20present%20ultimatums.
Kallas’ great-grandfather campaigned to create the first Estonian Republic in 1918 and was its first secret police chief. Her mother, grandmother and great-grandmother were sent to Siberia as Soviet prisoners, and her father, Siim Kallas, served as one of newly independent Estonia’s first prime ministers from 2002 to 2003. Now, Kaja Kallas is leading a new generation of resistance against Moscow.
“They use this old Soviet type of negotiation tactics,” said Kallas, who became Estonia’s first female prime minister last year. “First, demand the maximum, demand something that has never belonged to you. Then second, present ultimatums. And third: [They] do not give one inch in the negotiations, because there will always be people in the West who will negotiate and give you something that you didn’t have before.”
“They have asked that NATO goes back to its 1997 borders. Well, this is outrageous. It means that half of the members in NATO shouldn’t be in NATO,” Kallas said.
Once written off in Brussels as “Russophobes,” Western allies now take Baltic governments such as the one Kallas leads with a new level of seriousness. As Moscow has expanded its territorial ambitions, “we are being listened to, which is great,” Kallas said.
Just like Mexico let us keep the land we stole from them in order to end the Mexican American war.
He forgot to mention that the entire area belonged to Russia long, long, LONG before that. Another thousand year long turf battle that we are not going to solve by throwing money (and people) at it.
I really don’t understand why citizens would wait this long to leave. I’m not there, so I can’t 100% say what I’d do, but you’d think you’d take this more serious than a hurricane coming.
Bakhmut is of course of strategic value. It is covering the crossing of three major train lines and four major roads (M-03, M-32, T-13-02, T-05-13). As such it is the linchpin of the whole Donbas region. Besides that it also has some valuable mineral mines.
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Russian source report death per week at a lower rate than Ukrainian death per day. The ratio is again about 10 Ukrainians for 1 Russian.
I have said for a while that Bakhmut was in operational encirclement. Russian artillery could reach its last roads in and out. Since three days ago Bakhmut is in tactical encirclement. Russian direct fire, i.e. tank guns and hand held anti-tank missiles, can now cover all of Bakhmut's supply routes. They will shot at any car that attempts to drive there. Its one reason why the reported deaths have harshly increased. Should the Ukraine decide to order its soldiers to stay in Bakhmut the city will be physically encircled. All roads will be blocked not only by fire but by heavily armed Russian checkpoints. The Ukrainian soldiers in Bakhmut, several thousands still seem to be there, will then be left with only two options: surrender or die. ###
https://sonar21.com/the-fall-of-bakhmut-a-prelude-to-the-fall-of-ukraine/
During the last year Ukraine has enlisted hundreds of thousands of new recruits, but these new soldiers are being sent to the front with only minimal training. Ukraine does not have the number of trained, experienced soldiers required to mount a massive counter offensive. The lack of personnel is compounded by the inability of the West to supply ammunition and vehicles in sufficient numbers to sustain intense operations.
According to Andrei Martyanov, who has good sources in Russia, the 300,000 reservists called up last August have not yet been deployed to the front lines. The meaning is simple — Russia enjoys a massive advantage in terms of manpower, tanks, artillery, ammunition, missiles and combat air.
The fall of Bakhmut is a major blow, not just to Ukraine, but to the United States and NATO. This sets the stage for the West doing something desperate while Russia is content to continue to pulverize what is left of the Ukrainian military.
The odd thing is, this would mean they are only fighting to keep Crimea. So all this bloodshed was for nothing as they already had Crimea. Oh and then I bet Ukraine gets to join NATO.
Such a sad waste of lives and resources.
1) negotiating the Minsk Accords, which Ukraine signed and we and other NATO countries encouraged them to break>
2) By coming to us with their security concerns and seeking to negotiate to prevent this war from occurring.
3)By negotiating and end to it in March of last year in Turkey. A deal was close to being struck before we and Boris Johnson demanded Ukraine end the negotiations.
WE wanted this proxy war from the start. We fomented an illegal coup and installed a government hostile to both Russia and ethnic Russians in Ukraine. We trained and funded Ukrainian nationalists and neo-Nazis and encouraged them to persecute and kill ethnic Russians. We were running biolabs with deadly pathogens in them in Ukraine. We teased NATO membership for Ukraine. We thwarted peace at every turn by demanding Ukraine not implement the Minsk Accords that it signed.
If Russia or China were doing Mexico what we've done in Ukraine, WE WOULD INVADE MEXICO, justifiably so.
You're lying neocon, globalist turd, Dennisw. You and your ilk have us closer to a hot war with Russia, WWIII and nuclear war than we were doing the Cold War. You and your ilk are danger to safety of American citizens.
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Russian invasion of Ukraine is draining American resources until the time that China invades Taiwan and requires American help.
yup, that is correct
Update on Russian military operations in Ukraine for March 6, 2023:
- Russian forces continue the encirclement of Bakhmut;
- Western media admits Russian operations around Bakhmut is exhausting Ukrainian forces and may diminish them ahead of an anticipated Ukrainian spring offensive;
- US announces another military assistance package for Ukraine with fewer items listed and absent of any specific quantities despite previous packages featuring such information;
-Ukraine has urgently asked the West for more artillery shells in particular, highlighting the inability for Western industry to match or exceed Russian military industrial output;
- German arms manufacturer Rheinmetall claims to be considering building a tank factory in Ukraine. Older articles claim only if approved by the German government and after the conflict is over, newer articles suggest the factory may be built sooner;
- Ukrainian pilots are in the US to assess their skills for potential training on US warplanes (likely the F-16);
- Training Ukrainian pilots on F-16s or other Western warplanes will admittedly take years, if F-16s arrive in Ukraine beforehand they will likely be Western operators posing as Ukrainian pilots;
...our ability to cut off their economy...
Rots of ruck— we owe them, they have us and Joe Biden in their pocket. Even the Tylenol you take for a headache comes from China and so does the insulin the many American diabetics need. China has us over a baller and Joe gets his 10%.With the many Chinese spies in the country, China reads us like an open book.
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