Yes quite a lot of negative press coming out of the west with the NYT stating poor Ukraine defences to blame for recent Russian advances.
Not the 'tactical' retreats we heard of as the reason for giving up Avdivka.
The NYT has been a terrible source during this conflict.
There's a lot of huge change going on at the moment that I can't talk about here ... but, in short, the rest of Europe has got its collective backside into gear and is committed to a "role" inside Ukraine. There are already "boots on the ground" in a "policing" role. In the coming weeks, this will ramp up signicicantly. The wider Russian threat, and the total mistrust of the USA has galvanised the JEDI partners into real action. The most "vocal" spokesperson you will see/hear is Macron. If you've seen his speech from the other day, it wasn't bluff. Make no mistake though, the person behind it all is Petr Pavel. You'll hear more from Macron in the coming days .... and yes, we are on board too.
You might pick up negative stories about the front, but ponder this .... which side has lost billions of pounds of military hardware in the last few eeks .... SU34s, SU35s, A-50s, Commad liners, modern Naval patrol ships, oil refineries, metallurgical plants and explosive factories? What has Russia countered with? Some children killed in Odesa. And yesterday, in a gross error of judgement, they targeted Zelenskyy's motorcade along with the Greek PM (this is a no no .... expect Budanov's gloves to fall off).
I'm sorry I am having to condense and paraphrase a lot of what I have gleaned from Brussels this week ... that's just the way it has to be. I will of course answer questions that I can.
This is a summary of front stuff from a day or two ago. Quoted directly.
"Ukraine Military Status
Along the frontlines the Russians are facing new units as reinforcements are being brought to bear against them.
Also, the increase in shells is now ramping up faster than previously, that put together with monster swarms of new and improved drones are hitting the Russians in the 'nads.
The result is that now Russia and their offensive has run into a screeching halt, and in some places they are all of a sudden showing clear signs of buckling.
This is not aided by Russia having burned their candles at both ends for so many months.
Russian troops are now at a critical level, and no sane general would continue offensive operations now.
At the same time they are meeting new young Brigadiers that come out of the Tank Girl School of manouvre warfare.
With them they have brought their own ideas on how to do things.
This means that at increasing parts of the frontline they rely more on manouvre defence than static defence.
Pure meatwaves are met with armour, armour is met with artillery and drones, staging areas are hit with missiles, drones and artillery, and even sometimes by armour.
Every time Russia tries something, they are met with something new and unexpected.
And those generals are as fast as possible training their units in STANAG procedures and protocols, further increasing speed of mobility.
And, at no place is this change in tactics and behavious more evident than at Avdivka.
Russia there thought they would meet dense defence lines, after all Ukraine had said that such was ready.
Instead they got a repeat Vuhledar on their hands, but on an even worse scale, and with entirely new tactics thrown in.
The Russian troops are not amused about this, at least as unamused as their short lifespans permit them.
To make this possible they let the Russian attacks go further before cutting them down to get ample manouvre space, and move the columns further away from their covering artillery.
As such this does not give easier victories, but the goal is to pull apart Russias frontlines and make them ever more fluent.
Instead of fighting a war that suit Russian static defences, minefields, and meatwaves, they are forcing Russia to come out to play in a form of Ukraines chosing and that is more playing to Ukraines strengths and new training.
This pulling and tugging at the Russian lines makes it all more fluid, and open for sudden advances.
This has been made possible by said young brigadiers, but also by Ukraine having achieved de facto Air Superiority.
Ukraine is more and more relying on their Air Force, and now they dare to use even their older planes running Attack Missions with newly delivered weapons systems.
Let us just say that Ukrainian Air Force all of a sudden has a swagger that they have not had previously in this war.
Ukraine is now even confident enough to fly bombing missions deep into Kherson, and this is the answer to how to deliver "artillery" to the other side.
But, the artillery is now done more and more by aircraft slamming down heavy bombs on targets that was previously not possible to take out.
There's now several videos out of AASM-250 Hammer's are hitting targets deep inside of Kherson.
At the same time more and more drones are used there, together with artillery delivering pure broadsides now.
And the GLSDBs are dealing with the deep stuff, mainly concentrating on pushing Russias AD deeper and deeper back to make even longer bombing runs possible.
At the same time longrange attacks on Crimea is increasing every day now with up to five different main targets being hammered each day/night, and with several lesser targets being hit in between those.
And the Russians are noticing more and more that the noose is being pulled tighter and tighter around Kersh Bridge.
This change in tide will continue from now on.
Right now shell rates are changing, Ukraine is increasing with about 100 shells per day/700 per daily ratio over a week.
And Russia is dropping at the same rate.
This means that in about 5 weeks Russia and Ukraine will be on par with shell rate, but with Ukraine having higher accuracy and range it means that Ukraine at that point will be on top.
Obviously the war is still incredibly hard.
And no place tells that story more than Novomykhailivka.
Ukraine is now trying to reinforce there as well as possible.
But, it is not possible to run bombing missions there yet, and it takes time to bring in reinforcements, and enough consumables, to perform a counter-attack.
It is by now the only point of significance that is touch and go.
Odesa
Whenever Russia is feeling impotent, they kill civilians.
This time it is Odesa that has been selected for endless waves of Shaheeds.
As Russia looses ships, tanks, airplanes, and other valuable military targets, they massage the holes where normal people have souls and conscience, by killing children, women and senior citizens.
If they can't kill soldiers, then dead children will have to sate their bloodlust.
The only thing they achieve is to give more resolve, poignancy, and urgency among the politicians in Europe.
Many of them now have nightmares about that happening in European cities.
And most of them are now ready to do something about it.
One of those things is going to be more AD Units allocated to Odesa from inside Europe.
There's also plans on how to more actively go for the points of launch and take out the "batteries" for the Shaheeds, and their bases."
