[Werthead]

​Girkin has offered his gloomiest assessment of the war to date: the Zelensky regime has not been overthrown and is stronger than in 2022; the "de-Russification" of Ukraine has accelerated dramatically with the establishing of an independent Ukrainian church, and "Nazi propaganda" has "brainwashed the population." "Hatred for Russia has not only failed to diminish but accelerated many times over."

No "demilitarization of Ukraine" has been achieved. There are hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian troops in front of the Russian lines, better-equipped and more numerous than in 2022, well-organised, resilient and experienced. There is war fatigue but no sign of an imminent collapse, and an untapped reserve of hundreds of thousands of younger people. Ukrainian forces are continuing to operate on Russian soil over four months after their initial incursion. Ukraine is hitting reach echelons, striking industrial and infrastructure facilities on a scale that "grows month by month."

The territories of the "new regions" have not been liberated from the enemy. The adversary continues to hold the capital and most of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, and a large chunk of Donetsk. Russian successes in Kharkiv are minimal. There is "no chance" that all "constitutional" territories of the Russian Federation can be liberated militarily in the near future. The special military operation "has failed."

Russian propagandists and Telegram bloggers on Trump's comments: "As we assumed, Trump's plan is an ultimatum and blackmail. Better to prepare for the worst. Biden's term will soon be remembered with nostalgia as a thaw."

A Russian spy ship, believed capable of cutting undersea cables, transited the Straits of Dover today, escorted by a British destroyer. Shortly afterwards, a Royal Navy submarine unexpectedly surfaced in close proximity to the ship. The MoD issued a statement at the same time: "We see you, we know what you're doing, and we will not hesitate to take decisive action to defend this country."

Turkish and British aircraft were operational over the Black Sea today, carrying out long-range monitoring of the Black Sea and Crimea. At one point the British aircraft was very close to Izmail on the Ukrainian-Romanian border.

Ukraine is continuing to carry out operations in the Serebriansk Forest in Donetsk. This has been a weird battle, where Ukraine has not been able to reclaim territory due to infantry shortages, but has been able to fight mobile battles using armour (including some very rare tank-on-tank engagements). They used a drone equipped with a loudspeaker to encourage a Russian soldier to surrender.

The Ukrainian 3rd Assault Brigade has a platoon who speak perfect Russian and are equipped with Russian military IDs. On several occasions they have joined Russian lines and taken entire Russian squads prisoner.

Russian reinforcements have finally reached Kursk, forcing Ukraine to shift to defensive operations. However, the Russian forces have continued to attack in stupid "meat wave" assaults, limiting their effectiveness. Two Russian columns were also destroyed behind the lines by drone strikes.

Ukrainian flags were flown across the country on Unity Day, including in the Russian-occupied cities of Donetsk, Luhansk, Sevastopol, Simferopol, Yalta, Yevpatoria, Melitopol and Henichesk.

In an attempt to regain momentum, Russia has attempted night attacks in several sectors. This proved to be unwise as Russian soldiers have a shortage of night vision goggles, whilst Ukraine is positively overflowing with them. Several Russian tanks were destroyed at night by Javelins, whilst an attempted attack on a Ukrainian fortified position in a farmhouse was destroyed, with the Russian soldiers not equipped with enough night vision equipment to even return fire effectively.

Israel has captured a great deal of Russian-made equipment in Lebanon, Syria and Gaza. The Israeli Foreign Ministry has proposed transferring such equipment to Ukraine.

Zelensky has signed new agreements with Albania and Azerbaijan. Apparently Ukraine has shared information with Azerbaijan on detecting Russian air defence weaponry, a nod to the Russian AA missile that destroyed an Azerbaijani civilian airliner. Azerbaijan, unhappy with Russian verbal support for Armenia during their recent conflicts (the lack of material support led Armenia to basically telling Russia to f off and signed a cooperation agreement with the United Stats), probably did this as a pointed message to Putin that he is losing support in the region.

Steven Seagal is apparently taking part in visits to Ukrainian POWs. One POW, who spoke English fluently, insulted Seagal and was beaten up afterwards (by Russian soldiers, not Seagal).

Syrian media is reporting that Tartus Port Authority has terminated its contracts with Russian companies and the government of Russia, and requested that all personnel leave Tartus immediately. The status of the many tons of Russian supplies and equipment in the port is unknown.

The EU is increasing its funding to Ukraine to €35 billion ($36 billion) for the year.

This post has been edited by Werthead: Yesterday, 09:04 PM

[Werthead]

It looks like a bunch more Swedish CV-90s are in service in Ukraine. We've seen limited records of their service, but only a few have been delivered so far. Their main selling point is better armour and a much more powerful main gun than the Bradley (40mm Bofors versus a 25mm autocannon), which should be able to shred more Russian tanks in direct fire.

Ukrainian military analysis of the North Korean soldiers operating in Kursk: they are younger, fitter and, in some cases, better-equipped than the Russians. They advance doggedly in the face of superior fire and minefields, showing better battlefield discipline than most Russian recruits. The North Koreans try to take strongpoints and then withdraw after Russian forces arrive to hold the position. This means that NK soldiers are rarely holding positions on the front and usually rest in more comfortable quarters well behind the lines. This helps with their morale (possibly doing less for Russian morale, but still). They have also developed an effective anti-drone tactic of using single soldiers to "bait" drones whilst their fellows locate and destroy the drone with small arms. One interesting tactic has been using EW to jam the drones, forcing them to switch to autonomous mode, and then halting movement, which often causes the autonomous AI to stop the drone as well as it tries to reacquire the target. This provides a window for them to destroy the drone. This has been successful on several occasions, though some evidence suggests at other times it hasn't been and North Korean soldiers have been eliminated. The Ukrainians have responded by instructing the drones' AI to target formations and ignore single soldiers.

North Korean soldiers have been instructed to commit suicide rather than surrender. They also recover their dead from the battlefield rather than leaving them, as is Russian standard practice. Ukrainian assessment is that NK soldiers have performed better than expected and are a potent threat on the battlefield. They do acknowledge that these are better-trained, elite NK troops though, not the standard quality recruits.

Russia has so far said they see "nothing new" in Trump's statements on escalating sanctions, and complain that Trump has ignored diplomatic overtures on their part. Trump has requested that OPEC increase oil production to force Russia to halt the war, and Saudi Arabia has agreed to consider the request (which likely translates to them not doing anything). Kremlin insiders are saying that Putin has taken much more "urgent" notice of the economic problems over the last month. Apparently some Kremlin messaging has suggested recently that the establishing of the land corridor to Crimea and the near-total conquest of Luhansk Oblast is a "tremendous result" even if  they only hold parts of Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson. Whether that's really groundwork being laid for an end to the war or not is unclear. Some cautioning about wishful thinking.

Mark Rutte has suggested a new process where other NATO members pay for equipment to be sent from the USA to Ukraine.

Ukrainian personnel captured by the Houthis have been freed in a deal brokered by Oman.

The Pentagon has confirmed that the 90-day moratorium on international support from the US to other countries does not impact military aid to Ukraine, which is exempted. However, Trump's figures are not always the best (he said that Russia lost 60 million dead in WWII when it really lost between 12 and 13 million, with another 14-15 million from the other Soviet republics).

Trump has said that American numbers are that Russia has lost over 800,000 troops killed, captured or wounded; this is somewhat higher than prior estimates. He also estimates that Ukraine has lost 600,000 troops and civilians killed, captured or wounded, which is again somewhat higher than estimates but not as much. 

Serbia has indicated it is willing to support Ukraine's membership of the European Union, possibly as it tries to get its own membership program off the ground again, although myriad problems (including mixed support in Serbia and the status of Kosovo) continue to make that problematic.

Russia has ground out an advance south-west of Pokrovsk and then north, taking the village of Kotlyne. This completes the encirclement of Pokrovsk's southern flank, and puts Russian forces just to the south-west. However, a ferocious Ukrainian defence continues to hold off attacks to the east and north-east. This creates a headache for Russia as they can't encircle the town. They may have to resort to trying to storm it with most of the supply routes into the town still open, which could turn incredibly nasty very quickly.