Russia Invades Ukraine. Again
POSTED BY: captaincrunch
UPDATED: Sunday, September 6, 2026 21:09
VIEWED: 562266
PAGE 1033 of 1104
Yes, Russia Is Losing the War in Ukraine
And Putin seems to be the last person not to know it.
By Cathy Young
Jun 03, 2026
https://www.thebulwark.com/p/yes-russia-is-losing-the-war-in-ukraine-p
utin-drones-trump
Virtually everyone now acknowledges that the Russian ground offensive in Ukraine is stalled.
A notable exception, of course, is Putin, who asserted only last week that “this situation” (a delicate euphemism for the war) is “nearing its conclusion” and then explained that his claim was based on “an analysis of what is happening on the battlefield”: “Our troops are advancing in every direction. Everyone can see it, every blessed day.”
Even many of Russia’s hawkish “milbloggers” reacted with extreme skepticism. Expatriate Russian journalist and YouTuber Michael Nacke says that there is now “a whole constellation of fairly popular [pro-war bloggers] who explain at some length why Russia isn’t winning, no matter what Putin may say.” Putin, in fact, may be genuinely deluded. The Institute for the Study of War suggests, on the basis of leaked documents from the Russian Ministry of Defense, that his optimism likely stems from “a false perception of the Russian military’s successes in Ukraine based on heavily exaggerated maps from the Russian high military command.” It’s Potemkin villages all over again.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Heard that before. 
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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.
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Source: Zelenskyy's open letter to Putin, published on the Office of the President's website on 4 June
Quote: "We have seen intelligence reports showing that you are now considering plans to continue the war into 2027 and 2028. We also know that you hope ballistic missiles will achieve for you what everything else has failed to achieve. You want to draw Belarus even deeper into this war, and we are now forced to prepare for that as well.
We see that you are trying to orchestrate something around Transnistria. Your propagandists threaten, in one way or another, every country neighboring Russia. Do you really want to go through all of this?"
https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2026/06/04/8037819/
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Who's funding that big mouth? He ain't.
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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.
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Quote:From your very own spinmeisters?
Originally posted by second:
Source: Zelenskyy's open letter to Putin, published on the Office of the President's website on 4 June
Quote: "We have seen intelligence reports
Quote:
showing that you are now considering plans to continue the war into 2027 and 2028. We also know that you hope ballistic missiles will achieve for you what everything else has failed to achieve. You want to draw Belarus even deeper into this war, and we are now forced to prepare for that as well.
We see that you are trying to orchestrate something around Transnistria. Your propagandists threaten, in one way or another, every country neighboring Russia. Do you really want to go through all of this?"
https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2026/06/04/8037819/
This is classic SECOND: Misrepresenting, and trying to give it credibility by referencing anonymous "them".
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"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger
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Quote:June 2, 2026
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
This is classic SECOND: Misrepresenting, and trying to give it credibility by referencing anonymous "them".
Changing fortunes
To understand how dramatically Ukraine’s prospects have changed, consider that in March, then-ODNI director Tulsi Gabbard, testified that the U.S. intelligence community believed that Russia had the “upper hand” in the conflict.
Now Ukrainian officials and other observers have begun to worry about a premature sense of victory among Ukraine’s foreign backers.
More at https://www.defenseone.com/technology/2026/06/ukraine-robots-winning/4
13902/?oref=d1-featured-river-secondary
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Now Ukrainian officials and other observers have begun to worry about a premature sense of victory among Ukraine’s foreign backers.
OOPS!
Sold the bullshit too hard, didja?
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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.
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We're winning, but we're not really winning all that much.
Please give us more money.
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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.
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Quote:Fundamentally, Trumptards don't understand how a group of people can function effectively toward a common goal, unless there is a constant exchange of money and threats. The words "common goal" and "effective" and a whole bunch of higher concepts are meaningless to a Trumptard. It is why Trumptard families, even if there are only two people in the group, tend to self-destruct when placed under slight stress, unless there is cash flowing from one member to the next to grease the relationships.
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Who's funding that big mouth? He ain't.
Ukraine strips 8 military units of right to conduct basic training after inspections, Syrskyi says
By Jared Goyette | June 4, 2026 8:14 pm
https://kyivindependent.com/8-ukrainian-military-units-lose-right-to-c
onduct-basic-training-after-inspections-syrskyi-says/
Eight Ukrainian military units have lost the right to independently conduct basic training for new recruits following inspections in May, Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi said on June 4.
The inspections were conducted at 72 military units authorized to provide basic combined arms training at their own bases, Syrskyi said. Separate brigades and regiments were also instructed to review their capabilities and improve conditions and the curriculum for training.
"There are no untouchables," Syrskyi said. "The quality of military training must meet uniform high standards."
Syrskyi said Ukraine's military is continuing to update its basic training program to reflect the realities of the modern battlefield. The program now includes practical group exercises in detecting and destroying small drones, including copters and first-person-view (FPV) drones.
The changes follow previous efforts to overhaul military training as Ukraine faces a persistent manpower shortage and a battlefield increasingly dominated by drones.
Ukraine previously extended its basic combat course to 51 days and added modules on drone warfare, trench survival, and engineering. The military has also sought to move training underground as much as possible following a series of deadly Russian strikes on training grounds.
An April 2025 Kyiv Independent report detailed long-standing shortcomings in Ukraine's training system, with front-line commanders reporting that some new recruits arrived without basic survival skills needed for combat in a drone-heavy environment.
Syrskyi said professionalism and quality training were key to allowing Ukrainian forces to maintain an advantage over Russia despite Moscow's greater manpower resources.
He also linked training quality to commanders' treatment of troops.
"Where commanders care for their subordinates, improve living conditions, develop training facilities, and where instructors guide recruits and maintain constant feedback, the quality of training is higher and there are fewer cases of unauthorized absence from units," Syrskyi said.
Cases of soldiers going absent without leave (AWOL) have become a major challenge for Ukraine's military as it struggles to replenish infantry units after more than four years of full-scale war.
Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov said on Jan. 14 that around 200,000 Ukrainian soldiers were AWOL. Conflicts with commanders, exhaustion, psychological strain, resource shortages, and bureaucratic obstacles to transferring between units have contributed to Ukraine's growing AWOL and desertion crisis, according to soldiers, commanders, and other sources interviewed by the Kyiv Independent.
Syrskyi said Ukraine's military would continue to improve its basic training system, strengthen psychological training, as well as introduce additional measures aimed at preventing AWOL cases.
"Today, the lives of our soldiers and the effectiveness of combat missions depend on the quality of training," Syrskyi said.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafi
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America, the Inessential Nation
It turns out that Trump doesn’t have the cards
By Paul Krugman | Jun 05, 2026
https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/america-the-inessential-nation
On Feb. 28, 2025 Donald Trump berated Volodymyr Zelenskyy, president of Ukraine, for what he claimed was failure to show sufficient respect. “You’re not in a good position,” Trump declared. “You don’t have the cards right now.”
It was a spectacle that shamed America — Trump engaging in petty bullying of the leader of a nation fighting for its life against tyranny. If you have time, read the transcript or watch the video to see just how sickening it was. But worse was to come. Trump and his minions proceeded to cut off all financial aid to Ukraine:
They also began blocking shipments of U.S. weapons, even when other nations were willing to pay for them. And in August Trump held a meeting with Vladimir Putin in which, as the Russians see it, he offered to broker a deal that would give Russia control of a crucial fortress belt on Ukrainian soil.
It was a shocking betrayal of a democracy fighting for its freedom — and, in so doing, fighting for the freedom of Europe as a whole. Even some Republicans are ashamed. Yesterday 18 Republican members of the House broke ranks with their leadership and voted for a bill that would restore aid to Ukraine and impose sanctions on Russia. But the bill has no chance of becoming law, because Trump is siding ever closely more with Putin in a war that is now well into its fifth year.
But a funny thing happened to Trump’s attempt to hand Ukraine over to his comrade in thuggery: the war has turned in Ukraine’s favor. The fighting remains a gruesome slugfest, but Ukraine’s superior flexibility and capacity for innovation have gradually given it the upper hand in the drone warfare that increasingly shapes combat. In fact, Ukraine is so proficient at drone warfare that the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Saudi Arabia — which are facing drone attacks as a consequence of Trump’s disastrous Iran war — have signed agreements to draw on Ukrainian technology and expertise.
Zelenskyy, it turns out, does have quite a few cards, while Trump has far fewer cards than he imagined.
Before Trump, we were also a nation almost universally regarded as essential: Nations believed that they needed access to U.S. banks to do business, access to U.S. markets to prosper, access to U.S. weapons to defend themselves. But by breaking decades’ worth of international agreements — not to mention threatening allies and betraying Ukraine — Trump quickly forfeited the world’s trust. By failing so spectacularly against Iran, a far weaker military power, Trump has dispelled much of the world’s fear.
And now the fact that the world is managing economically despite Trump’s tariffs, while Ukraine is surviving despite Trump’s attempt to cut it off at the knees, has revealed that we are much less essential than everyone assumed.
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June 5, 1944 — back when we were a reliable and essential ally of nations fighting for freedom.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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