Posted on 05/24/2022 10:05:41 AM PDT by SpeedyInTexas
Walls rattled and pieces of plaster fell from the ceiling of a basement converted by Ukrainian troops into a forward outpost. Russian shells hit again and again the crumpled building above. Images on a surveillance monitor, linked to a camera outside in the deserted village, showed plumes of black smoke rising all around the compound.
“The Russians are very angry today because yesterday we killed two of their tanks,” said Marian, a platoon leader in the volunteer Carpathian Sich battalion deployed on the front line near the Russian-held Ukrainian city of Izyum. Like most military personnel, he is only allowed to provide his first name. “Every soldier here, ask anyone, their biggest dream is to destroy a Muscovite tank,” he said.
This time, soldiers in the village said, they destroyed the Russian tanks by using a re-engineered commercial drone to drop mortar shells on them. The technique is emblematic of the inventive improvisation used by Ukrainian forces in the now three-monthlong war as they face off against Russian units that are usually larger and better armed.
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
“They need American weapons to KEEP kicking RuZZian butts.”
Yeah pathetic how one has to keep telling the dunderheads that.
“Its not propaganda if it is true.”
That’s more of a modern misconception. Propaganda is not false by definition. In fact, the best propaganda is usually based on the truth.
For example, the Doolittle raid in WW2 was a propaganda victory for the US, but there was nothing false about it. Our strategic bombers did successfully raid Japan, and the stories about the raid made for great propaganda. The raid itself didn’t achieve any military objectives, but the point of the raid was to provide a propaganda victory, and that was achieved.
Meanwhile the war is progressing in Russia's favor. I do not have time to show detailed maps of what is happening but there are two reasonable Youtube channels which provide good daily reports based on multiple sources. These are Military Summary and Defense Politics Aaaaasia.
In the north Lyman has fallen with reports of Ukrainian troops withdrawing after a short fight. In the east the Ukrainian held city Severodonetsk is mostly isolated and now under fierce attack. Several more towns around the Popasna bulge have been taken by the Russian side. South of it the city Svetlodarsk has fallen after the Ukrainian tried but failed to destroy a nearby dam. The Ukrainian troops retreated without a fight.
Instead of holding the lines by all means Ukrainian units now seem more interested in running away. That is more healthy for them and also solves their serious supply issues. Like other supply lines the Bakhmut-Lisichansk road is now under Russian fire control. This video shows what that means.
What we are seeing now are the effects of nearly three months of Russian artillery war. The Ukrainian troops at the frontline have been ground down and those who are left are moving out before being destroyed too. The front begins to move at several points. When those points merge we may next see the tactical deep battle phase of a classic Russian deep operation:
Deep battle envisaged the breaking of the enemy's forward defenses, or tactical zones, through combined arms assaults, which would be followed up by fresh uncommitted mobile operational reserves sent to exploit the strategic depth of an enemy front. The goal of a deep operation was to inflict a decisive strategic defeat on the enemy's logistical abilities and render the defence of their front more difficult, impossible, or indeed irrelevant. Unlike most other doctrines, deep battle stressed combined arms cooperation at all levels: strategic, operational, and tactical.
“Propaganda is information to persuade to a POV. Isn’t always false.”
Propaganda yes.
But not all info is propaganda. Some info is factual.
Where do you live in RuZZia?
Ukies are fighting well but the reality is without US advanced weaponry and US intelligence spotting targets for them to employ the advanced weaponry against, they would be in a world of hurt.
later
The whores that masquerade on a daily basis as news readers or pundits on the mainstream media are like any normal cheerleader. They will shout passionately on behalf of their team at the start of the game but fall silent once a total ass whipping is underway. Pretty tough to shout, “Two bits, Four bits, Six bits, a Dollar, all for Zhelensky stand up and holler”, when there is no good news to show on the nightly newscasts. The presstitutes are suckers for video showing a ship getting hit with a Ukie missile and sinking, or a Ukie jet strafing a line of stalled Russian tanks, or Ukie artillery raking the positions of entrenched Russian soldiers.
But those videos are not available. The best Ukraine can produce are clips pulled from realistic video games that even confuse hardened warriors (sarcasm alert) like Barry McCaffrey. Imagine my shock today to read this headline and story from CNN. (Note–The CNN story confirms as true the analysis that Andrei Martyanov and I have offered):
Former US soldier now fighting in Ukraine tells of days trapped in ‘house of horrors’
Kevin is part of a group of elite foreign special forces veterans, primarily American and British, who have enlisted to help the Ukrainian cause.
He says that back in March, the group spent four days in the health spa – they called it “the house from hell” – often just 50 meters from Russian troops. It was, he says, the furthest-forward Ukrainian-held position in Irpin, a suburb on the outskirts of Kyiv, as Russian forces tried to push on through to seize the capital. . . .
Despite a career as a former top-level US counter-terrorism operative, serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, Kevin says it is here in Ukraine that he has faced the most intense fighting of his life. . . .
For the first time in his life, Kevin was defending against invasion by a better-equipped enemy. He, not the enemy, was the one who had to worry about airstrikes. There was no master plan, no air support – and there would be no evacuation in case of disaster.
“It was like a movie,” he says. “It was insanity from the start. We started taking indirect fire driving in – small arms fire driving in. And I was in a pickup truck, just driving down the street.”
“There’s tanks, and above us there’s helicopters. And you can hear the Russian jets flying by. And out in the open fields the Russians were dropping troops off in helicopters. And so you’re like: ‘Woah, wow!’ It’s a lot.”
Kevin and his colleagues were on the receiving end of artillery fire. During battles in Afghanistan, Iraq, or Syria, these foreign soldiers were calling in the air strikes and artillery bombardments. They’d never known was it was like on the receiving end. . . .
Day after day, Kevin and his buddies concluded that they, too, had had enough. Then the next day came, bringing with it new orders and new missions, and they found themselves staying on. Eventually, he says, they wound up at the sauna and gym complex where they holed up for four days, even as the building slowly disintegrated under Russian shelling.
“We call it the house of horrors, because it was literally a nightmare in there,” he says. “This was four really miserable days of really little sleep, really heavy artillery, really heavy infantry presence from the Russians. No matter how many people that we removed from their side, they just kept coming.” . . .
Kevin and his team were not sitting on Ukrainian tanks charging the Russians and defeating them on the field of battle. Nope. He and his special forces buddies were hunkered down getting to experience the receiving end of aerial and artillery bombardments. Karma is a bitch.
Kevin described the dilemma of the average Ukrainian soldier–no air support, no artillery support, no rescue. But hey, those Ukie troops sure are brave. I have a news flash for Kevin–there were brave Nazi soldiers fighting Soviet troops in World War II and they lost (thank God!).
There is plenty of intelligence data available to the Ukrainian military. Unlike many prior wars in most of the areas of combat people are still able to report what they observe instantly, and satellite images are readily available to everyone, including the combatants.
Google maps alone when combined with ground images often allows local analysts to locate where the images were taken.
Publicly available satellite images let you see where fires are burning in near real time. Those fires show where artillery is landing in many instances.
At a much more local level drone images are being used by both sides to locate troops, vehicles, and other targets.
All of that data is one reason that troops on the ground on both sides face a very difficult situation.
If it’s from official government sources (the only kind allowed because shut up), it’s propaganda.
Wha?
Factual info can be used as propaganda. Lies can be used as propaganda.
“Russia has lost 28,000 soldiers in three months of war in Ukraine, according to estimates by the DGSE, the French foreign intelligence services, confides an agent. “It’s a real berezina,” adds our source.”
https://twitter.com/Malbrunot/status/1528677763498094595?s=20&t=Bi0Maze0DYPr7x9H0xeg8g
The Russian soldiers are in a similar situation. Take a moment and read Viktor's story of his recent frontline experience on the Russian side in the Donbass region.
In Russian for our posters in Russia
Translated to English by Dmitri:
Where will Russia stop, and what will make that happen?
Keep killing the RuZZians by the thousands every month until they leave Ukraine.
Just like the USSR was defeated in Afghanistan.
Sounds like the music from Koyaanisqatis (Hopi for World out of balance). The theme fits the scene.
Propaganda would not be necessary if it were true.
Sounds like our MSM’s coverage of any subject.
No I don’t. You just love propaganda.
Yes, you clearly do...or you wouldn’t be arguing.
Others have referenced the correct meaning.
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