Malazan Empire: Werthead - Viewing Profile - Malazan Empire

Russia has managed to destroy its only manned space platform launch facility at Baikonur. The backwash from a Soyuz MS-28 launch appears to have obliterated the service platform, rendering it un-usable. They might not be able to repair it for 2+ years.

Ukraine has lost additional territory to the SE of Pokrovsk in the pocket, but the fighting in the urban areas of Pokrovsk and Myrnohrad has resulted in localised Ukrainian success: around 12 square kilometres has been regained by Ukraine in the past 48 hours. However, combat intensity remains high and Russia is sending in additional reinforcements.

Russia has sent troops to try to outflank Vovchansk on the northern edge of Kharkiv Oblast from the SW. This appears to have involved Russian forces advancing through marshland before the ground has fully frozen under overwatch from Ukrainian drones, with predictably negative results. Ukrainian forces in Vovchansk continue to hold the line. There seems to be anger that Russia is trying to advance in this sector when those troops could go to Pokrovsk instead where every Russian on the line counts.

A joint EU cyber-operations unit is apparently being proposed by various EU countries, particularly France, Italy and allied nations like the UK. The unit would be authorised to conduct offensive cyber-operations against Russian and possibly "other" state actors taking hostile action against them.

Ukrainian drones have struck multiple facilities used by the Chechen Akhmat unit, including in Grozny itself.

Turkey has offered to send peacekeeping troops to Ukraine to police a post-peace deal. Turkey has indicated it might be the only NATO nation acceptable to Putin to do so.

Ukraine has receive DITA self-propelled howitzers from the Czech Republic. DITA is one of the most advanced modern artillery systems with a 40km range.

Russia tried to launch a large ballistic missile as part of a test at Orenburg, but it exploded on the launch platform.

Two Russian shadow fleet tankers are burning in the Black Sea off the coast of Turkey. One was apparently hit by sea drones, unclear about the other one.

A drone that overflew Ukraine and entered Moldovan territory crashed in Chișinău. The drone was picked up and taken to the Russian Embassy. The Russian Ambassador seemed genuinely bewildered as he spouted some nonsense lines about it.

Some reports that the Mirage-2000 is outperforming the F-16 in the role of Ukrainian drone interceptor.

The Russian State Railway is close to financial collapse, with its debts rising to $51 billion. The problem is that the Russian Central Bank can't work out how to afford it without worsening inflation.

The cost of Chinese exports to Russia have almost doubled in the last year, whilst, insanely, the cost of those non-sanctioned European goods has increased by only 9%.

Armenia says it has "effectively" left the CSTO, since Russia did not fulfil the terms of the treaty by helping Armenia against Azerbaijan's attack last year. Entertainingly, Azerbaijan also seems lukewarm on its continued membership, and Tajikistan has had words about Russia's failure to help them against Tajikistan's incursions a few years ago.

Calls to fire Witkoff are growing behind the scenes, including from Republicans, with Rubio apparently not opposed to the idea and he may be winning Vance around, with the carrot of possibly replacing Witkoff with Vance's friend and ally Dan Driscoll. Driscoll is regarded as "warmer" towards Ukraine than Witkoff but not as much as Kellogg. Driscoll has also been willing to talk to Zelensky in person (Witkoff has never been to Kyiv, despite multiple flights to Moscow). Driscoll calls himself a "realist" and has reportedly told Zelensky that the US cannot provide Kyiv with Patriot missiles and other munitions at the pace needed to deal with this intensity of fighting (experts are somewhat divided on this assessment), whilst retaining enough stocks to act as a deterrent in the Pacific. However, Driscoll has praised Ukraine's drone industry and also its ability to adapt and improve US weapons in combat conditions, and argued that the US should leverage Ukraine's massive weapons manufacturing capability to help with its own stocks once the fighting is concluded. Ukraine's ability to build at least 1.5 million drones a year (last year's figure, they will smash that this year with at least 3 million) dwarfs that of the entire United States, which is insane.

Russia has managed to blow up one of its own apartment buildings in Novorossiysk with a mis-fired anti-aircraft missile, which flew out of control.

Ukraine has also hit the Taganrog airfield, destroying an experimental Russian AWACS aircraft equipped with a laser.

A large number of balloons carrying contraband have crossed into Lithuanian airspace from Belarus.

The Ukrainian delegation talking to Rubio and Witkoff seemed a bit confused in reporting that talks with them had gone much better than expected (to the point they all went out and had a friendly dinner afterwards) and apparently the 28-point plan is more of a basis for discussions than a final ultimatum (despite Trump saying that). There's also more messaging that acceptance of the 28-point plan is also contingent on Russia accepting it by Thursday. Russian state television has said they will either not accept it, but may accept it but will not abide by it, so there's that. 

Ukraine's position could be better but it also could be a lot worse. The question in play here are if the US will refuse to provide weapons and equipment in return for cold hard money. If the US continues to provide Patriot missiles, air-to-air missiles, ATACMS, HIMARS ammo etc in return for European cash, that situation can be borne, even if US intelligence is cut off. If not, the situation could be a lot more difficult. Ukraine could just run out of the Patriot missiles it needs to target Russian hypersonic and ballistic missiles, and some of the parts it needs to keep its F-16s flying.

French Intelligence's warning this week was stark: if Russia wins a bad peace deal in Ukraine, they estimate a general war between European states and Russia could begin in less than 3 years.