[Werthead]

Ukraine has agreed to accept a total ceasefire across the board, rather than just the aerial and maritime one they had previously discussed (itself originally a French proposal). As a result, the United States is restoring intelligence sharing and military aid. The Americans will be talking to the Russians shortly and say the "ball is in their court" and if they do not agree, "we'll know who the impediment to peace is."

On the Siversk front, a major Russian attack was crushed by the Ukrainian 30th, 54th and 81st Brigades. The loss is 14 APCs destroyed, 16 damaged; 1 tank destroyed, 2 damaged; 159 Russians killed, injured or taken prisoner.

Ukraine carried out a major drone strike overnight, damaging a Moscow oil refinery and the control station for the Druzhba pumping station, which controlled Russian oil transit to Hungary. The Stalny Kon oil depot in Oryol and the Dyagilevo airfield near Ryazan were also hit. A Russian drone and missile attack on Ukraine was mostly thwarted, with a single Iskander-M missile launched and then shot down. Ukrainian drones also attacked targets in Moscow itself, but at least some seem to have been intercepted by EW systems.

The Ukrainian Mirages are capable of carrying out AASM ground-strike missions, as confirmed by the French government. France has also ordered a doubling of its production rate of Rafales, AASMs, anti-tank missiles and drones.

[Mentalist]

Some voenkors and at least one Duma member already rejected the idea of a ceasefire.

Witkoff will be in Moscow on Thursday to speak to Putler directly.

UAF seems to be focusing their defense on Sudzha itself, the orcs are already in its eastern outskirts.

I am not expecting much to come from this, but UA has made the necessary appeasement gestures for the Europeans' benefit. Now if Washington flip-flops, it'll be obvious it's not UA that is to blame.

[Werthead]

A Chinese news crew (from the Hong Kong Phoenix station) embedded with a Ukrainian MLRS unit and followed them around for a week and filmed them launching missiles at Russian positions. Apparently this is the first time a Chinese media crew was given permission to film things from the Ukrainian POV rather than the Russian.

This comes the same week that Russia hiked import tariffs on cars from China.

[Tiste Simeon]

Werthead, on 11 March 2025 - 07:54 PM, said:

A Chinese news crew (from the Hong Kong Phoenix station) embedded with a Ukrainian MLRS unit and followed them around for a week and filmed them launching missiles at Russian positions. Apparently this is the first time a Chinese media crew was given permission to film things from the Ukrainian POV rather than the Russian.

This comes the same week that Russia hiked import tariffs on cars from China.

Who had China becoming the (sort of) good guys in 2025? If the EU and China can firm up some kind of alliance in the face of Russian stubbornness and American unreliability/idiocy/fascism then that would certainly be a boost across the board.

Please note I am not saying China are good or agree with many of the things I hear about them. They're looking more palatable by the day though. What times we live in.

[Chance]

Tiste Simeon, on 11 March 2025 - 10:03 PM, said:

Who had China becoming the (sort of) good guys in 2025? If the EU and China can firm up some kind of alliance in the face of Russian stubbornness and American unreliability/idiocy/fascism then that would certainly be a boost across the board.

Please note I am not saying China are good or agree with many of the things I hear about them. They're looking more palatable by the day though. What times we live in.

They might not be the friend we want but they are the rival we know what they stand for and who is reliable. Better a reliable rival than a unpredictable ally maybe.

Think it will be interesting to hear what putin and his cohorts will say about the ceasefire to not sound unreasonable while being unreasonable.

This post has been edited by Chance: 12 March 2025 - 04:02 PM

[Tiste Simeon]

Oh I fully expect something to mysteriously blow up in Russia, the Russians and Americans will kick off with "See! Zelensky is not playing fair!" And use it to justify who knows what. In the meantime it will have not been Ukraine at all but we'll never be able to prove it.

[Werthead]

Current reporting from Russia is spotty but one of the more convincing claims is that Putin will accept a ceasefire on the condition that all weapon supplies to Ukraine halt, as he thinks Trump will accept that.

Unconfirmed claims that Russia had told the US it would not negotiate unless Ukraine withdrew from Kursk Oblast. A Ukrainian withdrawal from Sudzha has been completed, and some reporting that all Ukrainian units have withdrawn across the border into Ukraine proper.

Maxar has restored satellite sharing with Ukraine.

Russian losses in the last 24 hours or so are the highest they've been for weeks, approaching 1500 killed, wounded or captured.

Polish sources have confirmed that US weapons supplies across the border have returned to normal levels.

[the broken]

So, would Ukraine or Russia benefit more from a truce right now?

[Mentalist]

the broken, on 13 March 2025 - 12:56 AM, said:

So, would Ukraine or Russia benefit more from a truce right now?

UA would get a 30 day reprieve from civillian cities being bombed and droned, have more time to regroup and fortify its defenses, and its European allies will have more time to get their shit together regarding ramping up their military spendings and production.

The orcs would lose their (already faltering) attacking momentum, but also get some time to regroup. But the pressure's on them, since they continue claiming UA is occupying territory they "constitutionally annexed" and they don't want to end the war until they "return it" (nevermind large chunks of it they never controlled in the first place)

[Abyss]

Tiste Simeon, on 11 March 2025 - 10:03 PM, said:

Werthead, on 11 March 2025 - 07:54 PM, said:

A Chinese news crew (from the Hong Kong Phoenix station) embedded with a Ukrainian MLRS unit and followed them around for a week and filmed them launching missiles at Russian positions. Apparently this is the first time a Chinese media crew was given permission to film things from the Ukrainian POV rather than the Russian.

This comes the same week that Russia hiked import tariffs on cars from China.

Who had China becoming the (sort of) good guys in 2025? If the EU and China can firm up some kind of alliance in the face of Russian stubbornness and American unreliability/idiocy/fascism then that would certainly be a boost across the board.

Please note I am not saying China are good or agree with many of the things I hear about them. They're looking more palatable by the day though. What times we live in.

Tariff War 2025 Canada here, suspension of disbelief cranked to 11.

[Werthead]

Ukraine now appears to have recaptured most, if not all, of Shevchenko, and its network of defensive fortifications. If they can hold it again, that would be hugely useful in staving off future assaults on Pokrovsk.

Trump has indicated that discussions between the US and Russia have touched on the fate of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, which Russia is having severe difficulty keeping online in a safe way. Some speculation that discussions may involve the power plant becoming under full IAEA control, or US nuclear engineers may take over plant operations pending a final peace settlement. It seems unlikely Putin would agree to return it to Ukrainian control.

Ukraine and Turkey have agreed a free trade agreement.

A fire is blazing at the CHP-16 power plant just outside Moscow. At one point it looked like the firefighting services had lost control of the blaze, but it appears to be back under control again.

Putin has indicated he may be amenable to the 30-day ceasefire if Ukraine agrees to not conduct training or rearmament in that time. He has not proposed that Russia do the same thing.

Poland has confirmed it is willing to host American nuclear weapons on its territory.

Ukraine has made further attacks on the Toretsk salient, trying to pinch off the head of the occupation zone and trap hundreds, at least, of Russian troops there. Ferocious resistance by the Russians but they seem to be giving ground.

Some analysis of Russian manpower availability has quizzed why Russia's concentration of troops in the Kursk area to oust a relatively small number of Ukrainian troops has apparently led to the near-collapse of Russian lines at Toretsk and Pokrovsk, not to mention significantly weakening the Chasiv Yar and Kupyansk front. Russia should have been able to conduct offensive operations in Kursk and at least hold those lines. This has led to the suggestion that the Russian manpower availability on the front may be reaching critical levels in various sectors. If, as Putin has hinted, the forces in Kursk now will try to invade Sumy Oblast to establish a "security area," the situations in those sectors may deteriorate further.

The ambassadors of Denmark and Germany visited the Russian foreign affairs ministry in Moscow today. No statements were given.

Finland and Ukraine have signed a new defence cooperation agreement.

37 countries have now agreed to support a security coalition over Ukraine. Many of these countries are not in NATO and believe they may be more acceptable as peacekeepers to Moscow (one NATO member, Turkey, believes it may also fall into this category).

The newly-advancing Russian forces in Sudzha came under heavy drone attack as they attempted to move on from the town.

Rheinmetall is negotiating with Volkswagen to take over inactive car plants to turn them into weapons production plants (things that would sound sinister in the 1930s but sound better in the 2020s).

One Ukrainian soldier fighting in Kursk believed it was worth it: in one battle in October, he saw 76 VDV Russian forces eliminated with almost no Ukrainian losses, and vast destruction of Russian tanks and IFVs. They also lost a lot of drone operators, as they deployed too close to the front and could be taken out with artillery. Although the operation eventually had to be abandoned, Russian losses outweighed Ukrainian and Russian bombs and weapons were impacting Russian territory rather than Ukrainian (he notes over 80 glide bomb hits on one small hamlet and the surrounding treelines in one day, and we saw a fuel-air bomb used in the closing stages of the battle).

[Werthead]

The US has agreed to supply more GLSDB bombs to Ukraine imminently.

The EU is imposing major new sanctions on Russia, with Hungary having agreed to drop objections. EU members and close allies are also seeking €40 billion in defence funding for Ukraine this year.

The US is looking to tighten sanctions on Russia's oil, gas and banking sectors by restricting access to US payment systems. The move aims to reduce Russia's oil revenue and raise prices for Russian oil by up to $5 per barrel. Two Chinese oil companies have since announced they are halting purchases of Russian oil, and two more are reducing orders.

The proposal for Ukraine to join the EU in January 2030 seems to be gaining more momentum. The EU budget for 2026-2032 is apparently being redesigned with Ukrainian accession in mind.

The revised US-Ukraine mineral deal is apparently finalised and only awaiting signatures.

Ukrainian forces are still operating in Kursk Oblast. The Ukrainian military states it withdrew from Sudzha to avoid encirclement and is uncertain why both Russia and the US are behaving like they didn't withdraw and are now encircled.

Russian forces operating further west in Kursk Oblast, where Ukraine has completed a withdrawal across the border, are applying pressure to several border regions. Putin has reportedly ordered them to cross into Sumy Oblast and secure a "security zone" along the Ukrainian border.

Trump has requested that Putin not target Ukrainian forces withdrawing from Sudzha and, surprisingly, it appears that Putin has agreed; orders not to engage withdrawing Ukrainian forces have reached Russian soldiers on the front, potentially the first time this has happened in the conflict. Russian soldiers on the ground report discontent with the order over Telegram.

Russian forces captured a Bradley fighting vehicle intact, and expressed frustration that everything inside is written in English. They expressed bewilderment at how the Ukrainians managed to operate it (the idea that Ukrainian forces are becoming co-fluent in English due to the equipment arriving for the past three years seems beyond them).

Mark Rutte has confirmed that Ukrainian entry into NATO is off the table, for now.

42 state-owned Russian enterprises in Donetsk Oblast have not paid any salaries to employees in those areas since the start of the year. No explanation has been given. Workers are increasingly angry and demanding how their rent and food bills will be paid.

Germany has opened the way to €500 billion in internal spending on defence, procurement and further military donations to Ukraine.

Portugal had been considering a plan to buy 28 F-35 aircraft. However, it is now re-evaluating the plan in light of recent policy changes in the United Stats, and is instead considering competing offers for Typhoons, Gripens or Rafales.

Apparently Putin made Witkoff wait in his reception room for eight hours, using an excuse of an "urgent meeting" with Lukashenko, and then sent him home with a daft list of impossible-to-satisfy demands.

Security advisors from Germany, France and the UK are apparently flying to the United States tonight for a meeting with Mike Waltz. Unclear why.

Significant hit by Ukrainian drones on the 333rd Combat Training Centre in Nizhny Novgorod. This is a huge distance from Ukraine.

Germany is moving towards greenlighting Taurus missiles for Ukraine.

The Tuapse refinery on the Black Sea looks like it was hit by a Storm Shadow. First Storm Shadow hit I've seen in a while, especially this far into Russia. Some sources saying it's not Storm Shadow, it's a Ukrainian cruise missile of a new type. Interesting if true.

This post has been edited by Werthead: 14 March 2025 - 11:36 PM

[Werthead]

Heavy fighting continuing around Shevchenko, but it looks like Ukraine has established firmer control of the settlement.

Ukraine has blown the Konka Bridge in Oleshky, Kherson Oblast. This is on the approach to the River Dnipro. Ukraine decided to take it out to complicate Russian efforts to cross the Dnipro, which have been ongoing for months now in one of the most insane operations Russia has undertaken in the entire war. Russian forces in the area reporting via Telegram that they have lost so many troops they're worried about the viability of defensive operations, let alone continued offensive ones, and some confused reports that Ukraine has reoccupied some islands in the Dnipro river mouth that Russia was trying to take for months.

Ukraine now confirming the successful deployment of the "Long Neptune" cruise missile, which has a range of 1,000km (this may have been used in Tuapse, but unconfirmed). They believe this will make it easier to strike Russian targets at long range, and may encourage the deployment of Taurus, which only has half the range but is available in larger numbers.

Russian troops on the Pokrovsk front filmed using e-scooters to go into battle. Unclear how they planned to charge them, but it rapidly became a moot point.

Confirmation of the Russian capture of Sudzha, as Akhmat units from Chechnya showed up to record TikTok videos. This only happens when there is no chance of them engaging in combat.

Canada is now re-examining its orders with the USA for F-35s, and is in talks with Sweden's SAAB over buying the JAS 39E Gripen as a replacement.

Wagner forces operating in Mali are now judged to have killed about 900 Mali civilians and even some of their own allied government troops in the past year. Wagner forces have been seen looting civilian shops, and attacking groups of civilian vehicles for no apparent reason. This is twice as many killed by Islamist forces (about 400).

Large-scale demonstrations in Belgrade and Budapest today, protesting both Serbian and Hungarian governments and suggesting they resign.

[Werthead]

Rumour that the US is prepared to recognise Crimea as Russian territory to end the war, but not the four occupied territories, punting that off into the long grass.

Russian forces have attacked Stepove in the Zaporizhzhia region. They claimed to have taken the town, but subsequent footage shows the Ukrainians still in control.

Footage shows that Ukrainian forces are still on the ground in Kursk, but have fallen back to areas closer to the Ukrainian border.

Hungary agreed to drop its veto on EU sanctions against Russia after Rubio called. Apparently Trump sees the sanctions as a key bargaining chip against Putin.

Trump plans to talk to Putin tomorrow.

Russia has suffered 100,000 casualties (KIA, missing, captured and wounded) in the first two-and-a-half months of 2025. The figures are based on Ukrainian reports (as usual, based on communications intercepts, funeral announcements at home and visual confirmation on the battlefield) and would be one of the highest periods of casualties in the war to date.

This post has been edited by Werthead: 17 March 2025 - 07:28 PM

[Mentalist]

Legalizing Anschluss is definitely the kind of precedent that won't promote worldwide proliferation of nukes as the only real guarantee of sovereignty.

Brilliant.

[Abyss]

Werthead, on 15 March 2025 - 09:57 PM, said:

...Russian troops on the Pokrovsk front filmed using e-scooters to go into battle. Unclear how they planned to charge them, but it rapidly became a moot point....

*that gif where Nathan Fillion sort of almost asks something then decides not to.*

[Mentalist]

That could've been a lot worse.

A prisoner swap is always good.

The long-range ceasefire feels DoA, since the orcs launched a new wave of Shaheds already. UAF can surely play "we were aiming somewhere else, but then interception and debris happened over that nice refinery" game. Especially since the orcs always report that "100% of enememy targets were intercepted, the minor damage is due entirely to the pesky falling debris"

[Werthead]

The Putin-Trump call resulted in an agreement by Russia to stop attacking Ukrainian energy targets for 30 days. It's unclear if Ukraine is expected to reciprocate. The US will move to facilitating talks to be hosted in the Middle-East in coming days. Russia and the USA have agreed to work together diplomatically to resolve the Iran-Israel conflict and (squints) cooperate in the vital field of international hockey.

China has agreed to participating in post-conflict rebuilding in Ukraine.

Russian Telegram reporting that Ukrainian forces have crossed the border of Belgorod Oblast in some force, engaging Russian units along a wide swathe of the border. The Russian villages of Prilssya, Grafivka and Demidivka are under attack. However, the Ukrainian Centre for Countering Disinformation denies that such an attack is underway.

The EU is preparing a €40 billion aid package to Ukraine, and may have overcome objections from Hungary and Slovakia to pass it.

Ukraine has confirmed the deployment of a new long-range strike drone with a range of almost 3,000km.

Germany has passed legislation for its rearmament programme.

[Werthead]

Shortly after agreeing to halt attacks on Ukrainian energy targets, Russia attacked Ukrainian energy targets.

This is going to go well.

[Mentalist]

Fuel depot on fire in Krasnodar Krai due to falling debris

Seems more negotiations are in order