Russia Invades Ukraine. Again
POSTED BY: captaincrunch
UPDATED: Sunday, September 6, 2026 21:09
VIEWED: 562266
PAGE 968 of 1104
Russian forces seized 4,831 square kilometers in Ukraine in 2025.
https://understandingwar.org/research/russia-ukraine/russian-offensive
-campaign-assessment-december-31-2025/
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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From the start of the German invasion of Russia (Operation Barbarossa) on June 22, 1941, to Germany's unconditional surrender on May 8, 1945 (V-E Day), there were 1,416 days.
1,407 days between January 1, 2026, and February 24, 2022, the day Russia invaded Ukraine.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Dull reality is slowly seeping into Putin's mind. He expresses no hope that his war will end this year or in the next, but perhaps in 2028.
Putin's New Year speech lauds Russia's war, makes no mention of peace in Ukraine.
Putin's speech avoided any mention of Ukraine, peace talks, or plans to bring the war to an end in 2026.
https://kyivindependent.com/we-believe-in-our-victory-putins-new-year-
speech-shows-no-intention-to-end-the-war-in-2026/
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:
Dull reality is slowly seeping into Putin's mind. He expresses no hope that his war will end this year or in the next, but perhaps in 2028.
Putin's New Year speech lauds Russia's war, makes no mention of peace in Ukraine.
Putin's speech avoided any mention of Ukraine, peace talks, or plans to bring the war to an end in 2026.
https://kyivindependent.com/we-believe-in-our-victory-putins-new-year-
speech-shows-no-intention-to-end-the-war-in-2026/
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
I hope Russia collapses tomorrow.
T
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Quote:Ukraine is a bear trap that Russia stepped into. Russia will have to chew off its own leg to escape.
Originally posted by THG:
I hope Russia collapses tomorrow.
T
Putin’s 5 Strategic Miscalculations
https://www.dagens.com/war/putins-5-biggest-strategic-miscalculations-
in-the-war-on-ukraine
When Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Kremlin framed it as a brief yet decisive moment that would reshape Europe’s security order. Instead, the conflict has evolved into a prolonged war that continues to strain Russia’s military power, economy, and international standing. Analysts argue that this outcome was not inevitable. Rather, it flowed from a series of fundamental choices that went wrong and reinforced one another over time.
1. A war that never needed to start
Perhaps the most consequential mistake was the decision to launch the invasion at all. What was intended as a quick victory after a brief show of force turned into a grinding conflict with no clear end. Russia is now locked into a war it cannot easily win or abandon. The political, diplomatic and economic costs have far exceeded what the Kremlin anticipated at the outset.
2. Misreading Ukraine
Moscow expected Ukraine to fracture under pressure and offer only limited resistance. Instead, the invasion unified Ukrainian society and strengthened its sense of national identity. This miscalculation also extended to Ukraine’s partners. Western governments responded faster and more decisively than the Kremlin had expected, supplying weapons, intelligence and financial support that proved critical to Kyiv’s defence.
3. Too few forces, too late
Russia’s initial assault relied on a limited number of troops, reflecting confidence that Ukrainian resistance would collapse quickly. That assumption proved false. When Kyiv held firm, Russian forces lacked the manpower and logistics needed for a rapid breakthrough. The failure to commit sufficient forces early on cost Russia momentum and contributed to heavy losses.
4. Turning the war into destiny
By framing the invasion as an existential struggle for Russia’s survival, Vladimir Putin raised the stakes dramatically. Such rhetoric left little room for compromise or a negotiated exit. This approach also hardened opposition abroad and at home. Defeat or retreat, once politically manageable, became far more dangerous for the Kremlin to contemplate.
5. Strengthening the very alliance he feared
One of the war’s most ironic outcomes has been the revival of NATO. Rather than weakening the alliance, Russia’s actions unified it. Finland and Sweden joined, defence budgets increased and NATO’s presence along Russia’s borders expanded. The bloc Putin sought to intimidate is now more cohesive than it has been in decades.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Dec 29, 2025
Germany's Skynex system has destroyed Russian cruise missiles, including the Kh-101 and Caliber, with Ukrainian crews praising its effectiveness, marking a crucial step in enhancing Ukraine's air defense system.
List of video sources https://docs.google.com/document/d/1kanZcmvOOxPxW9Woz0uT5Z9iyRQUq7zE_C
1_s0VHqyw/edit?tab=t.0
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Putin’s Threats to Europe: Anatomy of a Great Deception
Putin’s bluff relies on his opponent not looking at the cards, as he seeks to turn Europe’s insecurity into his own projection of strength.
By Dr. Orhan Dragas | Jan. 1, 2026, 12:58 pm
https://www.kyivpost.com/opinion/67259
For the European public, 2025 felt like déjà vu. As they watched battles near Kharkiv and in the Donetsk region, many wondered if Russian President Vladimir Putin was preparing to “occupy” Berlin, Paris or Warsaw after Ukraine.
Propaganda broadcasts on Russian state channels and melodramatic headlines in Western tabloids fueled fears. People forgot that in February 2022, the Kremlin promised a “special military operation” lasting only a few days and a march on Kyiv. Four years later, the Russian army was frantically trying to capture eastern Ukrainian cities while defending its own regions against Ukrainian drones.
Putin has been threatening Europe for three years with the same language he used to threaten Ukraine in 2021. The only difference is that Europe thought it was a bluff then, but now it acts like it was unavoidable. In both cases, the mistake is the same. The first time, Europe underestimated reality; the second time, it overestimated fantasy.
In the meantime, the Russian state is engaged in an attrition-based war against a nation it had intended to destroy in a matter of days. That war is not being fought on the Rhine, the Vistula, or NATO’s borders. The battle is taking place deep in eastern Ukraine, characterized by significant losses, improvisation, mass mobilization, and a growing reliance on domestic repression.
The Russian army is stranded in the trenches, relying on the large-scale mobilization of prison recruits and ammunition from Iran and North Korea. This is not the image of a force about to march on Paris and Berlin. It is the image of a country trying not to lose the war it has already started in Ukraine.
Yet instead of this failure weakening the Russian threat in European perception, the opposite is happening: the weaker Russia is on the battlefield, the louder it is in the media.
This is no accident. It is the old logic of authoritarian regimes: when real power declines, symbolic power must shout.
And just at the moment when the difference between myth and reality is most obvious, Europe begins to act as if the myth is prevailing.
There is that scene in “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” where the knight, who has had both arms and one leg cut off, keeps shouting, “It’s just a flesh wound!” and calls on his opponent to come back and fight “like a man.” The scene is funny because it is absurd. But it would be even funnier if the audience began to seriously consider whether that knight really posed an existential threat.
Europe today, unfortunately, is doing just that.
Putin has been threatening war with Europe for years. He threatens Britain, France, Germany, and Poland. He threatens NATO. He threatens the “collective West.” He threatens a nuclear response, “unprecedented escalation,” and “historic consequences.” The longer the war in Ukraine continues, the greater the Russian losses. The more distant the goals become, the more theatrical the threats grow.
Putin’s bluff
Let us repeat: Russia has been waging war against a single country for the fourth year. Not against a bloc. Not against an alliance. Not against a continent. Against Ukraine. The war, which was supposed to last several days, has turned into an exhausting conflict in which Moscow is losing men, technology, and strategic initiative, while simultaneously trying to convince the world that it is ready for war with all of Europe.
But this is not even a strategy. It is a bluff that relies on the opponent not looking at the cards. However, if the cards are examined, the game ends.
All this would be merely grotesque. What is becoming dangerous is that part of the European public and political elite begins to treat these threats as a real military projection, rather than as what they are: a substitute f
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Why The Constant Failure To Understand War?
Phillips P. OBrien
Jan 02, 2026
https://phillipspobrien.substack.com/p/why-the-constant-failure-to-und
erstand
Why does the analytical community in the USA fail repeatedly to properly understand and evaluate what matters in a war? This obviously came into focus in late 2021 and early 2022 when analysts within and outside government had no idea how to understand what a Russian invasion of Ukraine would look like. Since then things have arguably not improved and could be said to be getting worse.
There have been repeated mistakes in judging what matters, from “strategic Pokrovsk” (which the BBC is still pushing), to what I would argue is the enormous consensus that Ukraine was going to collapse from a manpower crisis and needed to draft all its young people. This last point was a chorus all year, whether one was pro-Trump or Trump-skeptical. In January 2025, Mike Waltz, who was then the incoming National Security Adviser, went on US television and said Ukraine needed to draft everyone from 18 year old on upwards. He even said they needed to do it to be “all in for democracy”. The irony of a man who was about to help enable Trump screw over democratic Ukraine for dictatorial Russia is beyond parody. And the chorus never let up. Two weeks ago John Bolton, not Trump’s favorite man, claimed that Ukraine needed to lower the draft age to 18 to “get more men on the battlefield”. Actually, Ukraine needs to find further ways to reduce the number of men on the battlefield, not raise it. But hey.
This consensus in the US discussion is fascinating, and it has reached the point that US voices are even telling Ukraine that it needs to draft all its women. The extraordinary confidence/arrogance coming from the US on this question, which pays no attention to the very nuanced Ukrainian discussion of the same question, is not only depressing, it is a key indicator of just why the US has failed utterly during the period of its hegemony.
Much more at https://phillipspobrien.substack.com/p/why-the-constant-failure-to-und
erstand?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email&utm_content=share from the author of How the War Was Won: Air-Sea Power and Allied Victory in World War II (Cambridge Military Histories)
Download for free from https://annas-archive.org/search?q=Phillips+Payson+O%27Brien+War+Power
https://z-lib.fm/s/?q=Phillips+Payson+O%27Brien+War+Power
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Russian forces occupied 4,336 square kilometers (1,674 square miles) of Ukrainian territory in 2025, the Ukrainian open-source mapping project DeepState reported in a year-end assessment published on Jan. 1.
According to DeepState, Russian forces managed to capture 0.72% of Ukraine's total territory over the past year, including territory in oblasts not previously occupied.
Amid the Russian advances, Donetsk Oblast saw the highest percentage increase of Ukrainian land seized by Russian forces at nearly 78% of the oblast's territory occupied — a 10 percentage point increase year-over-year.
According to DeepState, Russian forces have now captured approximately 75% of Zaporizhzhia Oblast, up slightly from about 73% at the end of 2024, while Kherson Oblast remains at 72% occupied.
https://kyivindependent.com/russia-captured-over-4-300-square-kilomete
rs-of-ukraine-in-2025-deepstate-reports/
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Ukraine holds 10,000 Russian POWs but Moscow prefer ‘ethnic’ Russians returned
The Kremlin is far from eager to bring all of them home.
By Kathrine Frich | Jan 2, 2026
https://www.dagens.com/war/ukraine-holds-10000-russian-pows-but-moscow
-mainly-wants-ethnic-russians-back
Thousands of Russian soldiers captured during the war in Ukraine remain in detention, offering a rare insight into how Moscow has fought the conflict.
The data sheds light not only on the scale of surrender but also on who Russia prioritises in prisoner exchanges.
Scale of captivity
More than 10,000 Russian servicemen have been taken prisoner by Ukraine since the start of the full-scale invasion, according to the “I Want to Live” project.
The initiative analysed records of prisoners of war and published its first comprehensive statistics, as reported by Interfax-Ukraine.
The authors said that Russia most often asks for the return of ethnic Russians from the Moscow region, as well as from Krasnodar and Perm, when negotiating exchanges.
Surrenders rising
The report shows a steady increase in Russian soldiers surrendering over time.
In the first half of 2025 alone, more Russian troops were captured than during all of 2022 and 2023 combined.
At that stage, between 60 and 90 soldiers were surrendering each week. In August 2024, the figure peaked at around 350 per week.
Since June 2023, Ukrainian forces have taken more Russian prisoners than the number of Ukrainians captured by Russia.
Where they were captured
Most prisoners were taken in eastern and southern combat zones, including the Pokrovsk and Bakhmut areas of Donetsk region, Russia’s Kursk region, and the Polohy district of Zaporizhzhia region.
In 2025, the number of foreign fighters captured also increased.
The project said nearly 7% of prisoners were mercenaries from around 40 countries, with two to three surrendering each week.
Who the prisoners are
The majority of prisoners are contract soldiers, while senior officers are rare. The highest recorded rank was colonel. Ages ranged from 18 to 65 at the time of capture.
According to the report, about 76% were contract soldiers, including recruits from prisons and private military companies.
Around 19% were mobilised troops and nearly 5% were conscripts. Almost a quarter said they were forced or deceived into joining the war.
Criminal pasts and returns
The analysis found that 40% of prisoners had criminal records, most commonly for theft, drug offences, robbery, assault or murder.
Education levels were low, with only 7% holding university degrees.
More than 6,000 prisoners have been returned to Russia through exchanges. Over half of those swaps took place in 2025.
The project said it was aware of at least 237 former prisoners who were later killed or went missing after being sent back to the front.
The ethnic makeup of exchanges also differed. While ethnic Russians made up 66% of all prisoners, they accounted for 83% of those returned, suggesting a clear preference by Moscow.
Sources: Interfax-Ukraine, “I Want to Live” project, Ziare.com
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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