Scottyboi
Well-Known Member
From "The Analyst":
BATTLES FOR STEPOVE REACH NEW HIGHS
The destruction of another Russian landing ship has to be mentioned as a great way to reinforce the weakness of Russian naval power in the Black Sea, but its military implications are minimal. It’s a headline grabber and an effort to get into the news cycle. Cynical maybe but that the reality of war. It’s just another frontline that has to be defended. Ukraine needs a success to tout and that along with the loss of Russian Su-34’s to SAM defences, now totalling 5 aircraft, goes a long way to proving they can still win in the media. The aircraft losses though are significant and have already had huge impact, as the use of glide bombs has almost stopped.
Meanwhile the battles for the tiny, now pulverised village of Stepove, a crucial part of the northern Avdivka defences, rage on.
All you can see now are the two east-west parallel streets - the houses have been demolished and shelled into rubble and dust. There’s nothing left.
The east end is constantly in the grey zone, with Russians trying to get into trenches at night but being spotted by night vision equipment. They are then shelled, shot or drone-mined to death. By morning corpses litter the area.
Despite constant attempts to try using infantry they repeatedly failed. The latest attempt is to use small numbers of armoured vehicles, maybe a tank and 3 others with a handful of supporting infantry.
The tanks tend to get further in but they too are taken out.
When Russians get anywhere like entrenched the Ukrainians send in a Bradley, to which the Russians have no apparent answer, and use its heavy machine gun to reduce the rubble they hid in to dust. There really is nowhere left to hide and it’s nearly impossible now to claim control or sustain it if you claimed it.
The Russians tried to claim they had stormed the whole village but Ukraine insists that’s simply not true and backs it up with plentiful drone footage to prove it. The number of russian dead per 100m here exceeds even some of the worst Avdivka fighting.
Meanwhile there’s been good news from Sweden and Denmark who are jointly providing more CV-90 IFV’s.
The Baltic states are providing millions of rounds of small arms ammunition.
Yet we all know what matters - US Congressional action. And we’re still weeks away from that.
In Russia the vanished opposition leader Alexei Navalny has been found in a new penal camp in Siberia. That couldn’t sound more Cold War cliche and typically Russian if you tried.
A television news reporter who tried to stand for president on an anti-war footing has now lost her job and been barred from standing because she made ‘hundreds of mistakes in her application form’. Really? How weak a pretext is that? Why do dictators bother with fake elections when everyone knows they’re fake and pointless and who the winner is? When the veneer of democracy seems to matter to the people most inclined to destroy it, it’s a bizarre ritual.
Meanwhile Russian ally Serbia - a candidate for EU membership - please never let that happen - has been racked with demos after a snap election where ballot stuffing and cheating were clearly widespread to keep the current regime in power.
Everywhere the dead hand of Putin can be found manipulating disinformation for his own gains.
We must recognise it for what it is. Russia is eating away at European and American democracy from the inside. Years of disinformation and division have started to pay off. We must be aware and we must keep vigilant against it.
Ukraine must win!
Slava Ukraini !
BATTLES FOR STEPOVE REACH NEW HIGHS
The destruction of another Russian landing ship has to be mentioned as a great way to reinforce the weakness of Russian naval power in the Black Sea, but its military implications are minimal. It’s a headline grabber and an effort to get into the news cycle. Cynical maybe but that the reality of war. It’s just another frontline that has to be defended. Ukraine needs a success to tout and that along with the loss of Russian Su-34’s to SAM defences, now totalling 5 aircraft, goes a long way to proving they can still win in the media. The aircraft losses though are significant and have already had huge impact, as the use of glide bombs has almost stopped.
Meanwhile the battles for the tiny, now pulverised village of Stepove, a crucial part of the northern Avdivka defences, rage on.
All you can see now are the two east-west parallel streets - the houses have been demolished and shelled into rubble and dust. There’s nothing left.
The east end is constantly in the grey zone, with Russians trying to get into trenches at night but being spotted by night vision equipment. They are then shelled, shot or drone-mined to death. By morning corpses litter the area.
Despite constant attempts to try using infantry they repeatedly failed. The latest attempt is to use small numbers of armoured vehicles, maybe a tank and 3 others with a handful of supporting infantry.
The tanks tend to get further in but they too are taken out.
When Russians get anywhere like entrenched the Ukrainians send in a Bradley, to which the Russians have no apparent answer, and use its heavy machine gun to reduce the rubble they hid in to dust. There really is nowhere left to hide and it’s nearly impossible now to claim control or sustain it if you claimed it.
The Russians tried to claim they had stormed the whole village but Ukraine insists that’s simply not true and backs it up with plentiful drone footage to prove it. The number of russian dead per 100m here exceeds even some of the worst Avdivka fighting.
Meanwhile there’s been good news from Sweden and Denmark who are jointly providing more CV-90 IFV’s.
The Baltic states are providing millions of rounds of small arms ammunition.
Yet we all know what matters - US Congressional action. And we’re still weeks away from that.
In Russia the vanished opposition leader Alexei Navalny has been found in a new penal camp in Siberia. That couldn’t sound more Cold War cliche and typically Russian if you tried.
A television news reporter who tried to stand for president on an anti-war footing has now lost her job and been barred from standing because she made ‘hundreds of mistakes in her application form’. Really? How weak a pretext is that? Why do dictators bother with fake elections when everyone knows they’re fake and pointless and who the winner is? When the veneer of democracy seems to matter to the people most inclined to destroy it, it’s a bizarre ritual.
Meanwhile Russian ally Serbia - a candidate for EU membership - please never let that happen - has been racked with demos after a snap election where ballot stuffing and cheating were clearly widespread to keep the current regime in power.
Everywhere the dead hand of Putin can be found manipulating disinformation for his own gains.
We must recognise it for what it is. Russia is eating away at European and American democracy from the inside. Years of disinformation and division have started to pay off. We must be aware and we must keep vigilant against it.
Ukraine must win!
Slava Ukraini !
