Lukashenko Accused of Betrayal and Going Against Putin
This is how several of our sources – in the Kremlin and the Defense Ministry – responded to the Belarusian president's new call for peace talks on the Ukrainian crisis. “They invaded our territory, the Nazis are seizing a Russian region, and he's being smart and calling for peace. Vladimir Vladimirovich is directly stating that there's nothing to talk about with the Kiev regime, and this one is going against us and calling for some kind of negotiations. This is real betrayal,” one of the sources said with irritation.
According to another, instead of “attacking Ukraine and helping Russia, Lukashenko is engaging in empty talk and trying to avoid participating in the conflict.” “We all remember how he withdrew troops from the borders of Ukraine. We won't forget anything,” the source in the military assured. The sources in Lukashenko’s entourage, whom we contacted, refused to comment on these words. But they promised to “analyze” them.
https://t.me/kremlin_secrets/4522
Will the last person to leave, turn out the lights
Oleksiy Danilov, the Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, has already said this publicly about the Kerch Bridge in the context of Ukraine's strategic interests. He stated that the bridge's presence, while significant, was actually advantageous for Ukrainian forces. The bridge, being important to Putin, requires Russian air defenses in Crimea to protect it. This, in turn, makes it easier for Ukrainian forces to destroy these defences when drawn out and dragged into Crimea.
This is the bigger picture.
We want clear skies for F-16’s. Taking the bridge down is one thing, but depleting all Russian air defences so they are unable to protect the front lines, oil refineries, their airspace against F-16’s, their borders, Russian mainland and their naval fleet, now that's priceless.
“There is no panic, but there are other feelings.” What the General Staff is saying after the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ Kursk breakthrough
If the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ offensive on August 6 came as a serious surprise to many, then from the vantage point of the past days, everything looks different. The day before, we talked to our friends and comrades in the General Staff to find out what the current mood is in the army.
One of our interlocutors admitted that mistakes were made at first. They were caused, among other things, by panic among the personnel. “We don't know how they managed to transfer so much equipment and troops to the border. Unfortunately, we were not ready. The enemy really found a weak point and used it 100%, let's be honest,” said the interlocutor in the General Staff.
A source close to Valery Gerasimov emphasized that the mistakes made in the first days of the invasion were caused by the scale of the front. “A huge front line, many reserves involved. And in general, several branches of the armed forces are mixed, which prevented effective command and control of the troops,” our interlocutor explained.
According to a high-ranking interlocutor in the Aerospace Forces, in the case of the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ offensive in the Kursk region, serious Western technologies were used, which prevented the aviation from fulfilling its tasks. Part of the aircraft fleet was lost during the fighting. The exact number is not disclosed, but the losses, alas, are serious.
A high-ranking interlocutor among the generals emphasized that by the end of the second week of the offensive, there is no sense of panic, but many hasty actions were provoked by the actions of the Ukrainian special forces. “Their saboteurs are scouring the entire region, and the commanders on the ground sometimes had reflexes that went “in the wrong direction.” That is, panic out of nowhere. This is basically what special operations forces are for. We work in a similar way. Now the situation has stabilized, but there are problems with managing reserves and we do not fully understand what is happening in the Glushkovsky district. How many people there are cut off from us logistically,” the general noted.