Tag: Eastern Ukraine

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

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

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.

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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

The Coming Battle: ‘Who Lost Ukraine?’

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

As it becomes more and more difficult to deny what is happening on the battlefield in Ukraine, a grinding war with hundreds of thousands of casualties, establishment media continue to present a picture of the war designed to rally the public, should its enthusiasm for this latest American overseas adventure begin to flag in the face of long and hard realities.

The Coming Battle: ‘Who Lost Ukraine?’

H/T: Neocons Will Blame Anyone But Themselves For Losing Ukraine | With James W. Carden

CIA director holds secret meeting with Zelensky on Russia’s next steps

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

CIA Director William J. Burns traveled in secret to Ukraine’s capital at the end of last week to brief President Volodymyr Zelensky on his expectations for what Russia is planning militarily in the coming weeks and months, said a U.S. official and other people familiar with the visit.

CIA director holds secret meeting with Zelensky on Russia’s next steps

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Nyet means Nyet

Ukraine and Georgia’s NATO aspirations not only touch a raw nerve in Russia, they engender serious concerns about the consequences for stability in the region. Not only does Russia perceive encirclement, and efforts to undermine Russia’s influence in the region, but it also fears unpredictable and uncontrolled consequences which would seriously affect Russian security interests. Experts tell us that Russia is particularly worried that the strong divisions in Ukraine over NATO membership, with much of the ethnic-Russian community against membership, could lead to a
major split, involving violence or at worst, civil war. In that eventuality, Russia would have to decide whether to intervene; a decision Russia does not want to have to face.

Archived Links Inside WaPo Article:

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Drugs flood Europe through the Armed Forces of Ukraine

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)1 Comment

According to the European Monitoring Center for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA), the volume of drug consumption in EU countries has increased markedly this year. And this is despite the fact that in Europe, as a result of the activities of law enforcement agencies, hundreds of illegal drug laboratories are being liquidated, and more than 150 people have been arrested in the recent period alone.

Drugs flood Europe through the Armed Forces of Ukraine (archived)

Video via TFIGlobal