Russia Invades Ukraine. Again
POSTED BY: captaincrunch
UPDATED: Sunday, September 6, 2026 21:09
VIEWED: 562266
PAGE 1084 of 1104
10,830+ posts, and 97% are dreck.
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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:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
10,830+ posts, and 97% are dreck.
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"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger
Yeah...
I've always thought my "Fuck Ukraine" posts were the only ones that mattered in any of these Russia threads to nowhere.
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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.
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President Zelensky needs to change the way he talks to Ukrainians
By Kateryna Denisova | July 29, 2026 9:33 PM
https://kyivindependent.com/president-zelensky-needs-to-change-the-way
-he-talks-to-ukrainians/
President Volodymyr Zelensky rarely misses a daily address. Nearly every evening, he sits behind the desk in his office, a wall of military chevrons behind him, and delivers a video monologue to the nation through his social media channels.
What he rarely offers, however, is a dialogue with the Ukrainian people and answers to the most pressing questions.
Zelensky has proved to be an effective communicator on the international stage, but domestic politics has long been his weak point. The president has consistently shied away from addressing politically costly yet urgent issues, including government reshuffles, corruption scandals, and difficult but necessary reforms.
On many sensitive issues, he leaves others to shoulder the responsibility.
Late last year, he shifted responsibility for addressing and dealing with the consequences of a major corruption scandal onto the newly appointed Prime Minister, Yuliia Svyrydenko. The scandal came to hunt Zelensky earlier this year when new revelations tied to his close allies became public.
Zelensky has yet to publicly address the allegations.
Mobilization, perhaps Zelensky's greatest political challenge, is another issue the president hasn't addressed. The president has commented on pay raises for soldiers, yet declined to talk about the politically contentious topic of military draft and rotation.
He has avoided taking a public stance on attacks against draft officers, and after the recent confrontation in Lviv, offered only a WhatsApp voice message to journalists, calling it "a very bad situation."
That reluctance to explain politically sensitive decisions is mirrored in Zelensky's approach to the press.
Don't get me wrong. Zelensky regularly gives interviews to foreign media, bloggers, and prominent public figures. But over the past five years, he has given too few interviews to Ukraine's independent media — I remember a couple to a public broadcaster and one to a radio station.
All this creates the impression of transparency and dialogue without actual substance. In a democracy, leaders are judged not by how often they speak, but by their willingness to answer uncomfortable questions. By that standard, President Zelensky has room for improvement.
From the first days of Russia's full-scale invasion, Ukrainians accepted an unwritten bargain: domestic political disputes should wait until the war was over.
The President's Office, however, appears to have mistaken that wartime consensus for a blank check.
The result is a system in which major political decisions are announced rather than explained. Lawmakers, despite their constitutional role in proposing a candidate for the prime minister's job, learn of the president's choice for this role through social media.
Officials find out they have been appointed or dismissed from a Telegram post.
In a democracy, leaders are judged not by how often they speak, but by their willingness to answer uncomfortable questions.
Zelensky entered office in 2019, saying that he could communicate directly with Ukrainians, bypassing journalists. Although he engaged with the media, including through hours-long press conferences over burgers and coffee, uncomfortable questions about corruption or his close allies have always been met with irritation or dismissive jokes.
Many of those questions have come to haunt him during the full-time war.
Nothing exposed the consequences of unchecked power more clearly than last year's corruption investigation into Zelensky's inner circle. A few months before the corruption probe was made public by law enforcement, Zelensky had signed the law that effectively stripped Ukraine's anti-corruption agencies of their independence, only reversing course after nationwide protests and pressure from Western
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Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, July 29, 2026
https://understandingwar.org/research/russia-ukraine/russian-offensive
-campaign-assessment-july-29-2026/
Russia’s superior aviation capabilities are allowing Russia to use glide bomb strikes to enable infantry advances in and near Kostyantynivka. Russian forces are widely using glide bomb strikes against Kostyantynivka and other cities in Ukraine’s Fortress Belt in Donetsk Oblast to turn the cities into rubble, physically destroy Ukrainian strongpoints and ground control stations, and allow Russian infiltrators to enter and eventually seize and consolidate positions.[1] The commander of a Ukrainian drone unit reported that Russian guided glide bomb strikes against Kostyantynivka are the main form of Russian successes in the area and are imposing major challenges for Ukrainian forces.[2] Russian forces debuted the tactic of using glide bomb strikes at scale to destroy Ukrainian positions to enable ground force advances with the February 2024 seizure of Avdiivka and subsequently used such strikes to support offensives against other settlements, such as Vuhledar in October 2024, Kurakhove in December 2024, and Toretsk in August 2025.[3] Russian forces continue to rely on their aviation overmatch into 2026, even as Russian infantry tactics have switched from larger-scale infantry attacks and mechanized assaults to mostly small group infiltrations. Russian forces have also been leveraging glide bomb strikes in their battlefield air interdiction (BAI) campaign in 2025 and 2026, particularly against Ukrainian ground lines of communication (GLOCs) in the tactical and operational rear.[4] (BAI refers to the use of airpower to strike targets in the near rear behind the frontline to impact battlefield operations in the near term.)
Efforts to degrade Russian aviation capabilities likely will deprive Russian forces of an important tactical advantage and help further reduce the tempo of Russian advances. Russia’s reliance on glide bomb strikes to facilitate ground advances is a vulnerability Ukraine and its Western partners can exploit. Ukraine has already significantly degraded Russia’s ground-based air defense network in sectors of the theater through a sustained suppression and destruction of enemy air defenses campaign (SEAD / DEAD) since late 2025.[5] Ukraine continues working to degrade Russian combat aviation, including with F-16 and Gripen fighter jets and other anti-air means, and continued Western support for these Ukrainian efforts can significantly reduce Russia’s aviation advantage.[6] A degradation of Russia’s aviation capabilities will deprive Russian forces of key means that the Russian military relies on for brute force tactical advances, and thus likely slow Russian advances on the ground, hindering Russia’s ability to destroy Ukrainian key fortified positions, leverage rubble to conceal infantry, and interdict Ukrainian logistics.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Do you want to know how I know this source is bull puckies?
Quote:Konstantinovka has been under Russian control for at least a month.
Originally posted by second:
Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, July 29, 2026
https://understandingwar.org/research/russia-ukraine/russian-offensive
-campaign-assessment-july-29-2026/
Russia’s superior aviation capabilities are allowing Russia to use glide bomb strikes to enable infantry advances in ... Kostyantynivka.
Like I said: dreck.
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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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Putin likes his worst option in Ukraine
By Carl Bildt | July 30, 2026 8:51 PM
Carl Bildt was Sweden’s foreign minister from 2006 to 2014 and prime minister from 1991 to 1994. He is Co-Chair of the European Council on Foreign Relations.
https://kyivindependent.com/putin-likes-his-worst-option-in-ukraine/
If Russian President Vladimir Putin were to make a clear-headed assessment of the state of his war with Ukraine, he would seek a ceasefire. But his head apparently is not clear, because all signs point to him pursuing some kind of escalation.
If he does indeed embark on such a course, he will make the situation worse for everyone, but primarily for himself.
Since his August 2025 meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump in Anchorage, Putin has been seeking to persuade the United States to force Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky into a deal that would leave Russia in control of the areas it has already stolen — a little less than 20% of Ukraine's territory — as well as handing over the sliver of the Donetsk Oblast that Ukraine still holds.
It is worth remembering that prior to the Anchorage meeting, Trump had the support of both Ukraine and the Europeans in seeking an immediate ceasefire. But after talking to Putin, he suddenly abandoned his pursuit of a ceasefire and instead accepted Putin's demand for Donetsk.
The Europeans naturally rushed to shield Zelensky from the pressure that Putin and Trump would try to apply on him, and political talks to end the fighting stalled. It was Trump —suckered once again by Putin — who prolonged the war.
Putin believes that striking civilian population centers and critical infrastructure can force Ukraine into submission.
The area in question lacks any economic importance, but it does matter for Ukraine's defense, and it carries symbolic weight for Putin, who changed the Russian constitution in 2022 to claim Donetsk as part of Russia.
The idea that Ukraine would hand over its position is therefore a non-starter. Over the last year and a half, Russia's military has suffered a gradual loss of capabilities, reflected in the declining quality of Russian troops, while Ukraine's battlefield-technology capabilities have improved markedly.
As a result, the front line has become a "death zone" that barely moves.
Of course, Putin still seems to believe that his forces can get full control of Donetsk, and his generals still fear the consequences of telling him that it cannot be done. But the odds are decidedly against him.
Equally, Putin believes that striking civilian population centers and critical infrastructure can force Ukraine into submission. But while he's undoubtedly inflicting great pain, aerial bombing alone has never won a war, and that won't change in Ukraine.
Over the past few months, Ukraine has expanded its own medium- and long-range drone strikes in Russia, where it has disabled a significant share of refinery capacity and triggered a politically painful fuel crisis across Russia. Ukraine will only continue to intensify these strikes.
But the real game changer may be Ukraine's effort to sever the supply chains linking Crimea to Russia.
The Ukrainians have been unremittingly striking freight trucks traveling through the occupied land corridor in eastern Ukraine, the bridge and ferries that cross the Kerch Strait, and ships attempting to deliver supplies via the Sea of Azov.
This campaign has already complicated matters for the Kremlin, and it could prove politically catastrophic if Russian control over Crimea becomes seriously contested. At that point, even freezing the conflict at the existing "death zone" might no longer be an option.
Other than Putin, hardly anyone in Russia is likely to care deeply about the sliver of Donetsk that is now blocking the political process. But many — rightly or wrongly — do care about Crimea. Indeed, it was Putin's land grab of the peninsula in March 2014 that boosted his popularity and set the stage for his full-scale invasion in 20
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Analysis: New Commander-in-Chief Drapatyi faces a manpower mess of Syrskyi's making
By Francis Farrell | July 30, 2026 10:46 AM
https://kyivindependent.com/analysis-new-commander-in-chief-drapatyi-f
aces-a-manpower-mess-of-syrskyis-creation/
"The transformation of the defense forces cannot end with a change of minister, team, or department head.
It must continue until fair and understandable rules become the norm for everyone who serves the state."
The words of Mykhailo Drapatyi, posted on Facebook just days before he was named Commander-in-Chief of Ukraine's Armed Forces, foreshadowed the challenges he would soon face.
Two and a half years after he took over the job from popular general Valerii Zaluzhnyi, Oleksandr Syrskyi's tenure as head of Ukraine's military is over.
Mass protests triggered by President Volodymyr Zelensky's firing of young, reform-minded Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov soon shifted their focus to Syrskyi, seen as the antithesis of Fedorov's modernizing, data-driven strategy that had started to show results in the war effort.
Replacing Syrskyi is 43-year-old Drapatyi, who for years has been elevated as a general with a reputation for being everything Syrskyi wasn't: progressive, forward-thinking, and with a dedication to truth and responsibility.
Despite the positive shift for Ukraine in the balance of power in the war — especially on the narrative front — Drapatyi has inherited a military beset by problems with its command culture, resource allocation, and, above all, manpower.
With Russia increasingly projected to double down on its war of attrition with some form of mass mobilization, deep strikes and asymmetrical warfare may not be enough to force Vladimir Putin to the table.
More than ever, Ukraine's military, with Drapatyi at the head, will need to face its systemic issues if it is to survive what could be years of more brutal positional warfare against a numerically superior opponent.
Taking control
On the one hand, Drapatyi is lucky to assume the job of commander-in-chief at a time when the front line is largely stable.
Rapid advances across the southern front line this time last year, combined with a quickly worsening situation around the nearly surrounded city of Pokrovsk, meant that Ukraine's already overstretched military was stuck in a long-familiar bind.
Units were broken up and spread all across the front line under command structures that didn't take ownership of them, in an effort to fight fires across a line of defense riddled with weak spots.
Now, the southern front line has not only stabilized — Ukrainian forces are mounting slow, methodical counterattacks.
The toughest situation remains in Donetsk Oblast, where, although Russian forces failed to push far beyond Pokrovsk, the battle for the great fortress belt has begun in earnest after Russian forces overran most of Kostiantynivka earlier in the summer.
Here, although the situation remains more or less under control and there are no immediate operational threats, Drapatyi will be faced with the challenge of untangling and reorganizing a force that has reached its current state largely because of Syrskyi's leadership.
The situation in Kostiantynivka is a clear example of the unfinished and unsatisfactory state of the transition to a corps-based command system that Kyiv announced in February 2025.
Some of the newly formed corps, made up of around five brigades each, have become unified and formidable fighting units because they were built around an already strong brigade like Azov or Khartiia, or placed under a competent command, such as that of the Air Assault Forces.
But most other army corps remain disjointed and often dysfunctional entities, bringing together a handful of exhausted brigades and attached units while often lacking the resources to set up effective corps-level assault, artillery, and drone units that corps like Azov have been able to establish.
When one throws into the mix large assault units lik
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Zelenskyy reveals Ukraine's and Russia's wartime losses
By Kateryna Danishevska | Fri, July 31, 2026 - 13:15
https://newsukraine.rbc.ua/news/zelenskyy-reveals-ukraine-s-and-russia
-s-1785492263.html
Russian military losses in the war are significantly higher than those of Ukraine's Defense Forces. Even so, the exact figures remain unknown, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in an interview with Fox News. https://www.foxnews.com/video/6402490895112
An American journalist asked the head of state whether he knew the approximate losses suffered by the Russian forces during more than four years of the full-scale war.
"So, their losses 1.6 million, and about 700,000 killed. About," Zelenskyy replied.
The journalist then asked whether the President of Ukraine could disclose the losses of the Defense Forces of Ukraine.
According to Zelenskyy, that is very difficult to do.
"And then compared to Ukraine? Compared to Ukraine, it's really very difficult to say. Sorry, be honest, I don't want to be very open about it because Russians will understand what's going on with our army. So we have about 50,000 soldiers killed, and we had about 400,000 wounded," the Ukrainian leader explained.
In effect, Zelenskyy confirmed that Russia's military death toll is approximately 14 times higher than Ukraine's.
He also noted that there are a very large number of people listed as missing.
Recently, Zelenskyy also announced that the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine is preparing many systemic changes on the front line.
Meanwhile, it has emerged why Trump abruptly changed his attitude toward the Ukrainian leader and who played a role in influencing that shift. https://newsukraine.rbc.ua/news/why-trump-suddenly-changed-his-tone-on
-zelenskyy-1785228825.html
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Quote:
According to Russian Defense Minister Andrei Belousov, Ukraine lost roughly 500,000 servicemen throughout 2025 and upwards of 1.5 million total killed and wounded since the war's full-scale escalation.
I trust Russia's figures more than Zelensky's bc Zelensky is a big fat liar, like Trump.
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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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Ukrainian drones now account for about 95% of the losses inflicted on Russian forces along the front, far surpassing the effectiveness of snipers, howitzers, tanks, and other conventional weapons combined.
“I am absolutely convinced that robots and drones should be doing the fighting wherever possible,” said former Ukrainian defense minister Mykhailo Fedorov in an interview published on July 31.
Much more at https://english.nv.ua/nation/robotics-will-inevitably-reshape-warfare-
fedorov-says-50628966.html
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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