rocketman

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUClHwJiT3I
Fresh stuff from my favourite reporter. Mateusz Lachowski managed to be one the first in liberated city, already in the morning. Some observations:
-City is very well preserved, people visibly cheerful like nowhere else in Ukraine, chantng on the roads, towns, city center. Total lack of power and signal, muscovites destroyed every piece of infrastructure but people have party of their lives.
-Still he is afraid they may soon discover true horrors of artillery strikes; city is in the crosshairs of artillery and Russians will not hesitate to destroy it once heavy Ukrainian units will come by [wise move to stay away from the city] or simply by revenge, since they expected that many more inhabitants of the city will took Russian passports and escape on the left bank. Their propaganda attempt to show it as apocalyptic evacuation of "Russian city" failed miserably due to passive resistance of the citizens. Giant and small flags we all saw were made by them, during occupation, as "hidden communality work" in order to sustain their identity. People captured with such flags could face persecutions; however, it seems overal people in Kherson were slightly less supressed than in other regions. Russians visually hoped to turn them into their citizens using carrots (and promised hefty benefits) rather than sticks.
-Still, people talk about widespread looting, torture chambers, hidden cementaries and people missing. Guys previously serving in ATO were especially scared for their lives, some hide for most of the time. He met a person who worked daily next to unit of Russian soldiers, including Chechens; he managed to steal some documents of presumably murdered Ukrainian prisoners before they burned them. Then he met Lachowski on the crossroads of the city, where he standed for some time in hope of giving them to any passing Ukrainian Special Forces.
-Bad news is that Russian withdrew in organized manner- withdrawing columns were passing the city entire last week. Almost no burned vehicles beyond Chernobaivka and maybe 1-2 old wrecks along the way from former frontline to the city. Very dissimilar landscape compared to Izyum (Lachowski was one of first correspondents there as well). City was almost emptied of Russian soldiers already by Thursday; there were some small skirmishes in the city center and perhaps at the bridge, but no visible damages.
-There was a blocking/rear guard unit of Chechens stationed there that tried to escape in civilian clothes. Locals recognized them instantly (beards  )and denounced to incoming Ukrainian soldiers who arrest/killed them [there were indeed hysterical Russian channels claiming AFU started "executions" of several dozens civilians]. Kadyrovites were hated by everyone.
-Many well-equipped (in NATO heavy stuff) Ukrainian soldiers he met along the way seem to go "somehwere", or at least are not visible int the countryside. He does not want to speculate, but some of them may be already moved into another fronts or even cross the river (Kilburn raid? Interesting).
 
Not a lot of new things, just some snippets. Note we discussed several months ago the usefulness of Chechens as rearguard in exactly the same way.

democracy is not doing what the majority of the people want.
 
democracy is doing what the majority wants while taking the wills of the minority in account.
and that is a big difference, which dictators are usually not very good at (other than that most dictators just really tell the people what they have to want).
 
Democracy is more that counting votrs casted in freedom. Shine this light of democracy on a nation and see how much of a 'democracy' that nation really is ;).
 

I think UKR will, as Steve mentioned, regroup for a short bit, but it will also be busy.  I think UKR will begin 'shaping the war'.  They'll work to threaten things Putin values the most, getting Putin to reinforce there.  Then while he's protecting his face they'll kick him in the nuts or knees.  Like w the Kharkiv operation.  But they'll keep at least some pressure in multiple places. 
About Biden, as per above:  Let's credit all the leaders who had the courage and vision to do the right thing and convinced the wavering ones to join in.  Biden, B Johnson UK, Poland, and others -- the ones who worked diligently and relentlessly, mostly behind the scenes, to build the huge coalition of support for UKR.  The sanctions that no one thought possible.  The huge amounts of arms and aid.  We were all later and less than needed in material support early in this war, but credit and honor to those that led the way.

Interestingly, crushing Wagner has enormous domestic political implications within Russia. If there's anything that would truly get the Siloviki's knickers in an unholy tangle it would be Prigozhin's boys getting annihilated, Prigozhin screaming blue murder and the RUS MOD being forced to reinforce/save it as a formation, to the overall operational/theatre wide detriment of the entire force in Ukraine and the intense irritation (or satisfaction!) of the MOD. Holy moly, talk about cats in a bag...
Taking out Wagner could be the key to the entire war, because of how its bound into the political forces morphing inside Putin's power structure.

On to Melitopol

It's worth also would be translate fragment of video with speech of Dugin.
In short:
- this is not only a war of Russia and NATO, this is a war of God and Devil, Heaven Hosts and demons of Hell
- Western ideology is a lie and sin, because it rejected God, if it rejected God, then it from Devil. 
- We must withstand against western Satan ideology with own ideology of Holy Rus and must build vertical of power like Heaven Power is built. 
Russian ayatollah....

I'm starting to wonder if we are seeing the first signs of the RA trying to have something of a military left when all this is over. This is all just speculation, but at this point in the war, some Russian general somewhere has to be thinking about trying to preserve what little conventional strength they have left.

As did the French. It's a lamentable fact the French fought pretty hard in a losing fight only to have that forgotten soon after.

Likely just because Surovkin is a guy from their club 
Lapin surrendered Balakliya and Lyman - he is a traitor!
Surovkin is surrendering Kherson - this is a wise man decision! 

It's a monumental waste of money that we can't and should not afford. Wasting half a billion dollars on a plane that was never profitable and would fly twice a year is even ethically wrong at this point. Especially since we are donating to buy winter uniforms for our soldiers and many of them aren't getting paid for 3 months because MoD is heavily under budget.

Well, each section holds about 300 names,  and is say,  5m long,  pier to pier. 
Current RUS casualties are c75000, so /300 = 250 sections. 250 * 5m = 1250
So a wall 1. 25km long, and still growing....
Incidentally, the Kremlin complex is about 1.5km in circumference,  so pretty soon (eg Jan 2023) a wall like this could encircle that particular heart of darkness. 
And keep growing and growing, visually tightening a noose... 
But it's not like those cruel ****s inside will give a damn, of course. 
 
 

That alone would justify a serious Black Sea expansion. Not just on the UKR side,  but the RUS as well.  An interesting expansion would be where the "original war"  reignited,  but without US involvement -  where Peace was gained at the cost of NATO membership, yet then RUS did attack again. 
But this time,  UKR forces are vastly different and mimic current structures/trends/ equipment.  
 

Typical Russian negligence and incompetence - memorial plaque in honor of the pilot captain Rabazan Radzhabov (31st fighter regiment), who was killed during UKR Tochka-U strike on Millerovo airfield on 25th Feb. On the  background of plaque art designer has placed... UKR Su-27. It didn't bother anyone
 

time to start dealing with Swiss banking laws then.  How neutral are they really? hhmmm 

BANG!

Could the Chinese be using North Korea as a cut out? There will be things check from now on when the Ukrainians over run a Russian Ammo dump. 

And the grain deal is back! There's  A LOT of things for which Erdogan can be criticized, but his approach to dealing with Putin is perhaps the most effective from all the NATO leaders.
 

In Ukraine the age of persons, liable for military service in wartime is 18-60 years. Many of theese aged soldiers in army jokingly named "diad'ky" (eng. "uncles") and say that "diad'ky are towing all war on their shoulders". Yes, many of them served recently in Ukrainian or even in Soviet army, but this was many years ago and their value not in this. Many of theese 40-45-50+ men are from villages and small towns, where no enough comfort life like in big cities, but hard handwork in agricultural enterprises, on their farms and on their homesteads. Yes, often theese men are addicted to alcohol and have only basic shcool education, but they used to be in hard conditions. They can do everything from anything. They can coock without field kitchen, they can repair any vehicle without special repair unit, they can dig and build blindage without sappers and then made from it not dirty hole, but something like this:   
Many of modern "city generation" - IT, office employees, used to comfort life, which for example can be cool coders or managers, but often can't hammer a nail stright (because they have a money to hire an "uncle" for this), just would be loss at this war without theese "uncles". They are mainstay of infantry, armor and artillery. Youngers maybe fight more effectively, they more capable in command, tactic and application of new toys like drones, but "uncles" give them own experience of real life and skills. 

By the way, staying within Air defence topics, I had very interesting conversation lately with one US soldier who happen to station in my city and was moved from Bahrain. He was very into technical details and claimed that most Iranian drones of Shaheed series can have problems if really deep winter comes, as they were designed to be used in Persian Gulf area only. Reportedly Iranians regularly loose them on tests even in higher parts of Zagros mountains.  There was some specifics details (sorry, I am not tech guy ) about supposedly batteries working bad in very low temperatures, not able to generate enough heat, which may lead to some subsystems switching off. I am curious if he may be right.

Night launch of Javelin. Successful
 

This could also be attempt to influence US election:  "Look, Biden is endangering the world w his war of choice" -- that is basically what the 'citizens for sanity' ads are saying.  I wish I lived in a country where Putin would look at our main parties and say "either way I'm F-ed!".   Having said that, I still think that both parties will support UKR going forward and Putin's hopes will be dashed -- but it's no certain thing.

First hints from the Russians, all the stated condition are completely unreasonable of course. It is still a sign the dinosaur that is the Russian state has realized it has a problem.

Yes, also for future releases on Steam. If you buy from Battlefront they don't lose a part of the profit to Steam, so support them and buy here.

That is cheating! Also, I absolutely love it - it's so obvious that I wouldn't ever thought it possible  
 
Also, was that posted here yet? Repost just to make sure:

 

Paint-job on Himars imitating meme: