Outgunned and outnumbered, Ukraine’s military is struggling with low morale and desertion

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Outgunned and outnumbered, Ukraine’s military is struggling with low morale and desertion

Serhiy Tsehotskiy, an officer with the 59th Separate Motorized Infantry Brigade, told CNN the unit tries to rotate soldiers in and out every three to four days. But drones, which have only increased in number over the course of the war, can make that too dangerous, forcing soldiers to stay put for longer. “The record is 20 days,” he said.

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Ukraine’s Gamble

Ukraine’s Kursk incursion has raised flagging morale among its troops and restored its initiative along a patch of the front. 

59th Motorized Brigade (Ukraine):

“Chosen Company”, a group of volunteers from the United States, Australia, and several other countries, is attached to the 59th Brigade as an assault detachment within the brigade’s reconnaissance company. The unit, which was formerly a part of the International Legion, conducted reconnaissance and assault operations during the 2023 counteroffensive. In 2024, a New York Times article reported three incidents where members of Chosen Company killed Russian POWs, based on statements made by former members of the company.

‘Kill-Crazy’ Foreign Mercs in Ukraine Bragged About Murdering Russian PoWs – Report

Poorly trained recruits contribute to loss of Ukrainian territory on eastern front + The US Is Sending $125 Million in New Military Aid to Ukraine

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

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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.

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

The West is Learning the Wrong Lessons about Airpower in Ukraine [Updated w/ video]

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Brian Berletic

A recent article appearing in the US-based Business Insider titled, “Russia’s showing NATO its hand in the air war over Ukraine,” would provide a showcase of the deep deficit in military expertise driving increasingly unsustainable, unachievable foreign policy objectives. The article summarizes a number of interviews conducted with Western “airpower experts,” exhibiting a profound misunderstanding of modern military aviation, air defenses, and their role on and above the battlefield.

The West is Learning the Wrong Lessons about Airpower in Ukraine

The Man Behind Trump’s VP Pick: It’s Worse Than You Think

While J.D. Vance has his own controversies, his close connection to billionaire Peter Thiel, who is poised to have unprecedented influence in a new Trump administration, should deeply unsettle every American who cares about freedom, privacy and reining in the surveillance state.

The Man Behind Trump’s VP Pick: It’s Worse Than You Think

H/T: The Most Revolutionary Act

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“Time to stop singularizing Trump as uniquely evil”

As practically everyone on planet Earth must now know, Donald Trump has become the first former US president to be convicted of felonies after leaving office. The response to the outcome of the trial from Democrats and Republicans has been predictably binary. Democrats have been reveling in the outcome and seem to think that the trial’s conclusion has delivered a final blow to Trump’s credibility and, in turn, his chances of winning the upcoming election. Trump’s supporters, on the other hand, are largely condemning the trial as politically motivated “lawfare” waged by the “radical left” in order to derail Trump’s chances of winning the upcoming election, which might end up galvanizing his base.

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I can’t stand Trump, but this is why I don’t post about the criminal charges against him. I’d rather see him, and the rest of them, charged for war crimes! Furthermore, I can understand why his supporters, and even foreigners, see it as lawfare.

Anti-Coup Rebellion in Eastern Ukraine Completes 10 Years as Russian Forces Continue Advancing in Donetsk

April 2014 was a pivotal month for the people of the Donbass region in what was then still part of Ukraine. It was then that the governing regime was newly installed in Kiev by a coup d’état on February 20/21embarked on military hostilities against the people of the region. The coup overthrew Ukraine’s elected president and legislature. It sparked rebellion in Crimea, Donbass (Lugansk and Donetsk), and in towns and cities in other regions of eastern and southern Ukraine.

Anti-Coup Rebellion in Eastern Ukraine Completes 10 Years as Russian Forces Continue Advancing in Donetsk