El País: Ukraine does not have enough soldiers to stop Russia (summary)
The situation of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in Kurakhove [Pokrovsk Raion, Donetsk Oblast] is critical, as they face an alarming shortage of soldiers, which complicates their defensive efforts against Russian advances.
Read More »Ukraine’s brigades can recruit their own soldiers, and they compete with each other to craft the best advertising campaigns to sell the war.
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The creative work, Bondarenko said, is done by a team of 20 — 13 military personnel and seven civilians. Their messaging feels impossible to escape, covering more than 1,000 billboards across Ukraine, which she said are largely donated. Digital ads are funded by the profits from their YouTube channel, she said, which has nearly 1.3 million subscribers and generates more than $15,000 monthly. On Instagram, they have another 115,000 subscribers.
Soon, they hope to expand into a new area — merchandising. The brigade envisions it as a one-stop shop where people can purchase T-shirts, patches and other mementos of the war.
Meet Ukraine’s top fighting unit — at least that’s what their ad says
The 3rd Assault Brigade is the Neo-Nazi Azov Battalion rebranded. Andriy Biletsky was its founder.
Related:
Thirst Trap Nation: How E-girls Are Luring Young Boys Into Joining Army, with Alan MacLeod
“Sexualized fascism”: how the taboo nature of Nazi imagery made the alt-right more powerful
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Some new Ukrainian soldiers refuse to fire at the enemy. Others, according to commanders and fellow fighters, struggle to assemble weapons or to coordinate basic combat movements. A few have even walked away from their posts, abandoning the battlefield altogether.
While Ukraine presses on with its incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, its troops are still losing precious ground along the country’s eastern front — a grim erosion that military commanders blame in part on poorly trained recruits drawn from a recent mobilization drive, as well as Russia’s clear superiority in ammunition and air power.
Poorly trained recruits contribute to loss of Ukrainian territory on eastern front, commanders say
Related:
Reuters: Russia and Ukraine report gains as some Ukrainians flee strategic city
But although the incursion is an embarrassment for Russia, Moscow’s forces have continued their gradual advances of the past few months against tired Ukrainian troops in eastern Ukraine worn down by 2-1/2 years of heavy fighting.
Moscow said its troops had taken control of the village of Mezhove in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine, and that they had beaten back an attempt by a Ukrainian force to infiltrate its border in a different region to Kyiv’s Aug. 6 incursion.
Ukrainian authorities say Russian troops are now just 10 km (six miles) outside Pokrovsk, an important transport hub in eastern Ukraine, and this week started evacuating elderly residents and children.
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Moscow’s capture of Pokrovsk, which lies at an intersection of roads and a railway line, would give Russia options to advance in new directions and also cut supply routes used by the Ukrainian military in the Donetsk region.
WSJ: Ukraine Moves to Encircle Russian Troops in Kursk and Digs In for Long Fight
The incursion hasn’t, so far, shifted the dynamic on the war’s main battlefields in eastern Ukraine, where Russia is advancing in toward Pokrovsk, a key Ukrainian logistical hub, and Toretsk, a city on strategically important high ground.
The US Is Sending $125 Million in New Military Aid to Ukraine, Officials Say
A short-term measure carries political and military risks as the Biden administration considers whether to tap into U.S. stockpiles again.
Pentagon Weighs New Plan to Ship Weapons to Ukraine Quickly
When I began investigating the kidnapping of children in Artyomovsk [Bakhmut] by Ukraine, I had no idea of the extent to which I would uncover trafficking on an international scale and the sordid methods used to supply children to paedophile networks and organ traffickers.
Organ trafficking, paedophile networks – The hell of children abducted by Ukraine
Related:
Bakhmut symphony, January 2023. How the city continues to survive the war
A special unit – called Bilyi Yanhol (White Angel) – has been created in the Bakhmut Police Department. Officers from the White Angel unit search for people who want to evacuate and try to convince those who do not; they are also in charge of organising evacuation transport to help people get to safe settlements several dozen kilometres away from Bakhmut or to other parts of Ukraine.
It is for this reason why the Charitable Fund Samaritan Ministry was founded. We came as God’s ministers in order to intervene and make a lasting impact on the lives of the lost children in Ukraine. The Fund established the Perlinka orphanage in 1999. Over 30 children were found and sheltered. Aside of that, the Fund initiated the ‘soup kitchen’ which serves meals for street children, in addition to the daily needs they give them. Likewise, precautionary campaigns are being conducted by the Fund team in schools, state orphanages and other educational institutions so as to teach moral and Christian principles and to show decent lifestyle for the welfare of the society. Moreover, the Fund conducts summer Kids and Youth camps annually.
From the time that Russian forces invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Western media coverage of the war has been dominated by the perspectives of Ukrainians who support Zelensky’s government and who oppose Russia. While it is vitally important that we be informed of their perspective, we cannot truly understand the Ukraine war without hearing from Ukrainians who reject Zelensky’s rule. In the Western mainstream discourse, those Ukrainians are virtually invisible.
Invisible Ukrainians: A conversation with a professor from the Donbas
Depleted Uranium Ammunition and Crimea (archived)
Aside from armor-penetrating tank rounds, the US uses DU ammunition for its 30mm GAU-8 Avenger Gatling gun on the A-10 Warthog ground attack jet fighter. The A-10s figured prominently in the Iraq wars and in Afghanistan.
Ukraine last winter requested 100 A-10 jets from the United States and have been secretly training to use the aircraft in combat. If a Crimea offensive takes place, the A-10 may be moved into Ukraine and flown by a combination of Ukrainian pilots and possibly by volunteer former US Air Force pilots.
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How will Russia answer these latest developments? Putin has already sent a warning to Britain about DU ammunition, although what he actually has in mind is not clear. If Russia is watching US activity in rushing the Abrams tanks to the battlefield, including the possibility of the A-10, the situation will get more heated.
Ms. Cat’s Chronicles 
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