BobUpnDown
Well-known member
Tension and defiance in Panama after Trump threatens to ‘take back’ canal https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...hreatens-to-take-back-canal?CMP=share_btn_url
The end?
- Thread starter borolad259
- Start date
red_harrington
Well-known member
US secretary of state Marco Rubio may do just that this week as he descends on Latin America for his first tour abroad. According to Espino de Marotta, he is already discussing a meeting with the canal’s leadership. “I understand he’s going to meet with the administrator of the canal, so hopefully this would be a good place to meet,” she told the Observer, adding that she couldn’t speak for Rubio’s official agenda. On visiting the canal, she said: “I hope they are.”
In other words, a meeting, not a military invasion.
The meeting is likely because the military option was ordered.
For sure. It was strategically untenable for the USA to allow the operation of the Panama Canal to be so heavily influenced by China in the One Belt, One Road initiative. Panama were told that the USA had executive orders that would allow their military to take back the canal by force and they backed down immediately and are pulling out of the Belt and Roads Initiative. When the USA gave the canal to Panama in 1977 the treaty explicitly states that the USA can use military means to take back the canal if the waterway’s operations are threatened by a foreign power. The USA see the Chinese influence as that threat.
Decent_Left
Well-known member
Mind your heads
bsky.app
Prune60 (@prune602.bsky.social)
‼️ “In Russia, a high-ranking official and an Investigative Committee colonel fell out of a window on the same day” 🇷🇺: Gravity Happens https://www.moscowtimes.ru/2025/02/05/vrossii-vodin-den-vipali-izokna-visokopostavlennii-chinovnik-ipolkovnik-sk-a154280
bsky.app
Message to Russians: FFS, only enter bungalows or cellars. If not, wear 2m long shoulder pads.Mind your heads
Prune60 (@prune602.bsky.social)
‼️ “In Russia, a high-ranking official and an Investigative Committee colonel fell out of a window on the same day” 🇷🇺: Gravity Happens https://www.moscowtimes.ru/2025/02/05/vrossii-vodin-den-vipali-izokna-visokopostavlennii-chinovnik-ipolkovnik-sk-a154280
Russian Headaches missive and Magastan news
"Before we talk about Russia I think I should write about The Spectacular Trumpian Victories…
I have never seen something cave as quickly as Trump’s World Trade War. Let us go through what Trump got for his troubles, and with that I do not talk about what he believes he got, but in reality.
Remember that he first picked a fight with Colombia back in the day, or as we usually state it, last week. He wanted Colombia to accept prisoners via military aircraft, so he levied 25 percent tariffs on Colombia.
After 4 hours Trump made a deal with Colombia and claimed victory. What did he get? Colombia reaffirmed the existing program of returning illegal immigrants from the US via civilian aircraft, a program more than a decade old. End result? Coffee is now 10 percent more expensive in the US, the prices did not go down in the end, so someone is making extra profit.
Next up on Trumps list of victories is Panama. He seems to somehow have called off the attack after striking a deal giving the US preference in shipping slots, partial control over the canal company, military bases and the right to have 4 000 military and civilian staff on said bases.
Sounds like a good deal? Problem is that US has had that since 1999. In fact, they had total control over the canal company until Trump meddled, now there are Panamanian partial control of it. Oh, what a glorious win.
Then we had Mexico. During a phone call between Sheinbaum and Trump Mexico promised to place 10 000 soldiers along the border to combat drugs and hinder illegal immigrants to enter the US. Sounds good doesn’t it?
Only problem is that they were already there to fight the cartels, and there was a deal between US and Mexico for years about it. So, Trump caved 4 hours before the Tariffs would come into place. Avocados increased in price with 10 percent and has not gone down.
Trump’s most spectacular victory is though against Canada. Trudeau spun him so far up on the ledges that he is seeing the moon clearly.
He promised to spend 1.3 billion Canadian dollars on border control and defence against the US. But this is part of a deal that Canada made on the 17 th of December 2024 with Biden. Some other things were included in that deal that Canada didn’t really like, so Trump agreed to remove those parts.
So, Trump negotiated away parts beneficial for the US and got less out of it compared to what he already had. And it is getting way worse. Turns out that Canadians didn’t like things, and that they are truly petty when they fight.
Canada blocked sales of alcohol from Red States, those that voted in favour of Trump. Canada never reinstated the sales of that alcohol. And to make things even worse, there is a feverish drive in Canada to not buy US goods at all.
It is estimated that US is set to loose half of their sales in consumer goods in 2025. I have never seen winning on this scale before, exactly as Trump promised.
So, the big one. The Greenland/Denmark/EU/UK Tariffs, the mother of all Trade Wars. Where did that one go? In a whimper he stated that EU is truly mean to the US, and that UK is out of line. He then whimpered that we are “truly horrible”. I agree with him, we are gloriously horrible to him.
So, what did Trump get out of his threats? Nothing. Not a single thing. Except for negative things. So far two countries have informally dropped out of purchasing F-35 jets. Oops. On top of that he now has 150 military technicians sitting at Pituffik Space Base being under informal Base Arrest.
Now over to China, here he is actually going through with things and a 10 percent tariff is now in place. China countered by stopping imports of US oil and gas, and are instead opting to buy, wait for it, drumroll… Canadian.
They have also declared that they might turn off Google Services in China and filed suit against the US in WTO. Otherwise, they are not picking up the phone.
The Orange Petulant Toddler in Chief did not like this, so he ordered the US Postal Service to not deliver packages from China. In other words, he stole packages from US citizens and companies that said citizens and companies had ordered and paid for.
No Temu pink thongs and dildos for the US citizens, and no spare parts for Chinese machines for US Companies. Bigly Win!
Many believe that Trump and China are somehow working together to destroy the US, this is far from the truth. Trump hates China on a primordial level, and Xi is not much fond of Trump either. Now, the US doesn’t like China even on a Biden-day, but this goes far beyond the normal US anti- China rhetoric.
We tried to get to why, and there is a persistent rumour in London that China shafted Trump in a business deal in the early ‘noughties. We are still digging into it obviously.
On the home front Trump is doing Gods Work, truly. He has bumped off USAID, and now he has offered every single CIA employee a severance package. USAID was a front for CIA all along, but it did a lot of good while being that. So, the attack on USAID was the first strike against the CIA.
We believe he will follow up with attacking other US Intelligence Agencies. This is all a must for him to secure the power in his hostile takeover. He must achieve total control of all armed branches of the government to secure his coup.
Problem for the US is that it is blinding US totally. It will for at least a period of months be totally blind against any threats from outside. Basically, he is giving terrorist organisations a field day. EU is obviously also reaping the benefits of this, as long as the US is blind it is not able to perform any operations against us.
Now back to Ukraine/Russia.
Ukraine
The General Staff is embarking on a mission to create Army Corps. The only reason to do this is to get units big enough to perform large scale offensive manoeuvres. At the same time 50 000 soldiers are being transferred from non-Combat roles in the West, to the Army in the East.
This is done to improve manpower ratio visavi Russia, and there are good reasons for this, but to understand that we have to go to Russia.
Russia
Russia is now hurting in pretty much every way imaginable. Their export revenue is gone, their liquidity is gone, they have run out of economical means to continue, their arms production have failed, their ally seems less and less inclined to even help out, they are rapidly running out of equipment, and they are also running out of soldiers.
In January they lost 48 000 soldiers, half KIA and half WIA. At the same time, they recruited 5 700 soldiers across the entirety of Russia. Not even the new record level of 4 million Ruble as a sign on bonus helped, and 40 000 dollars/Euro is not small change in Russia.
This means that the Russian army in Ukraine dwindled with 42 000 men. In November of 2024 Russia had 120 000 fewer soldiers than Ukraine did, now that number has hiked to 200 000. This is obviously totally unsustainable in both medium and long-term.
Even short-term it is problematic to fight an offensive war with staffing issues. Russia should truly have slammed the breaks back in October/November and gone into a defensive posture only.
That would have conserved manpower and ammunition. It would also have changed the attrition ratio considerably. Currently Russia has a 7:1 casualty ratio, and if they had gone into defensive posture that would have dropped to something like 2:1 due to technological disparity.
But, with a far larger population, 2:1 loss rate would have put Russia in a better position than Ukraine long-term. Thankfully this did not happen, and now Russia has a much lower effective combat power than Ukraine.
Now you will correctly say that Russia is still advancing, this is true. But all their advances come at a price in manpower and munitions that is non-sustainable, all they are doing is speeding up their downfall.
We are seeing clear signs of this now, let us take a gander at the frontlines.
Chasiv Yar is said to have fallen, this is though only partially true. Ukraine is still hanging on to the Western edges of the City, but most importantly, they are still holding on to that mahoosive Soviet nuclear bunker complex in the forest.
And from that one they are performing raids into Chasiv Yar proper via underground tunnels and culverts. That being said, it is at the going rate just a question of time before Ukraine is pushed out completely from the City, and after that Russia will be threatening to encircle the bunker and it must be abandoned.
In Toretsk things have mostly stalled out for now, Russia takes a house, Ukraine takes it back, Russia takes a field on the outskirts, Ukraine takes it back. But, around every ten times Russia manages to hold on, but the price is terrible for them.
In Pokrovsk Russia seems to have given up on performing their usual frontal assault, they just do not have the manpower and shells to do it. So, instead they are attempting to encircle the place.
This is a massive undertaking, and the going is extremely slow and costly since they need to take roughly 1 000 fields and treelines to pull it off, and Ukraine here has a massive logistics advantage.
Unless something unexpected happens I do not think Russia is able to do it. They will run out of troops and equipment long before they can take it. And even if they take it, Russia would at that point be in such a weakened state that the war is over.
Taking Pokrovsk is a far worse project than taking Bakhmut or Avdiivka. Here Ukraine has 10 times the logistics compared to both of those combined. Here they have the manpower advantage, and the advantage of firepower. Something that they did not have in either Bakhmut or Avdiivka.
But for now, Russia is advancing at a snails pace, but taking Pokrovsk will at the going rate take between 12 – 24 months.
Now, let us take a step back and look at things from the perspective of Russia’s stated goals of taking all of Luhansk, Donetsk, Zhaporizhzhia and Kherson.
Taking all of Kherson is just a ludicrous proposition, there’s after all a huge honking moat in the way named Dniepro. This obviously does not hinder Russia from attempting to get over. This has created somewhat of a boom business in making small boats in Russia, and the river is slowly filling up with glass fibre hulls and cheap Chinese outboard engines.
Let us just say that it is impossible to achieve in this decade and move on towards Zhaporizhzhia. Here Russia is making a lot of noise about having taken 2 villages after 2 years of fighting for them. At the going rate this means that it will take Russia a decade to take it.
In Luhansk Russia has a Kupyansk sized problem, here they have literally not advanced an inch in 2 years. On top of that, a bit to the south they attempted to reach the border river to Kharkiv Oblast, but that also failed.
In Donetsk Russia is making minor progress in Chasiv Yar, Toretsk and Pokrovsk, that is true. But to take all of Donetsk they will have to take something much bigger. Even if they take all 3, they still have a long stretch to gnaw through to reach Kramatorsk-Slovyansk.
If you look at a map you will notice that just getting there is a big feat, and they are big cities with more than 300 000 citizens, and behind them are a huge network of roads and rail lines. To be brutal, Russia just can’t do it. Not even long-term.
And this leaves us with Kursk, the bleeding wound in the body of Russia. Things are not well inside Kursk from a Russian perspective.
The North Koreans have pulled out as you know, that created a hole that Russia had to fill with Russian units. They failed in achieving this. At the same time Russian units in Kursk are suffering unsustainable casualty rates.
And to make things even worse, Russia has run out of ammo and shells here. The manpower and ammo shortage are slightly baffling. We do know that Russia is low on both, but the problem is mainly visible on this section of the frontline.
The reason is obviously political, Putin wants Pokrovsk, Toretsk and Chasiv Yar taken, so new recruits and any ammo they can find, or produce is sent there, with Kursk seemingly getting nothing.
Most likely in Putins mind Kursk is North Koreas problem, after all they have a deal stating that North Korea should help out in Kursk. Problem is that Russia ran out of North Koreans, and the ones remaining are busy resting far behind the lines after taking 40 percent losses.
Same goes for equipment, the idea seems to have been that North Korea should furnish cartridges and shells for this section of the frontline. And they did do just that but only issued that to the North Korean troops.
And to top off Russia’s problems, North Korea is only delivering 170mm shells and no longer has any 152mm on stock. Oops.
The plan was that the massive North Korean artillery division with their top-of-the-line 170mm self-propelled tracked and armoured howitzer’s would do the fire missions against the Ukrainians.
And as they arrived and clattered forward the biggest artillery duel began, and an entire military world looked on. We all wanted to know what would happen, we all wanted real world experience and data, West, Ukraine, Russia, South Korea and North Korea all drooled over the chance to see how good the blasted things truly are, and what the real stats are.
Yes, the range was indeed 35km, yes they made big booms as they landed. It was most impressive really. But with no Korean troops around to protect with walking fire-lines, they got used as counter-battery and fire support missions for armour.
And the precision was also somewhat lacking. I’m unfair, it is on par with most unguided artillery, but in a time of Excalibur and other guided ultra-precision shells, lightning-fast ballistic computers, and state-of-the-art artillery radars… let us just say that North Korea has good **** that is not capable to cope with today’s battlefield.
And with Tank Girl being the pro she is, she had prepared for their arrival with the best that the West could ever deliver in the way of artillery. She had that backed up with the best available drones and missile artillery. She also had all of it served by the best crews in all of Ukraine.
If you have been following the number of boofed artillery you will notice that it had dwindled considerably. The number was down almost to an average of ten artillery systems per day. But, as soon as that North Korean artillery was deployed those numbers skyrocketed up to an average of 50 per day, with the peak being 62 in a single day, and yesterday it was 52.
All of that increase is the North Korean monster-howitzer’s. The division had 4 artillery brigades in it, with 48 howitzer’s each, giving a total of 192 howitzer’s. In 5 days, half of those is gone. I would at this point assume that Kim Yo-jong is having one of her famous temper tantrums.
Something I find interesting is that the Punderati has almost not covered Kursk. I guess it is not that interesting since there has been no big advances, nor a fertile ground for doom and gloom. Instead, it has been fairly slow plodding meticulous advance on the part of Ukraine.
Yes, Russia managed a couple of decent counterstrikes’ initially, but after that Ukraine took a field here, a treeline there, a trench, a small village now and then, rinse repeat. It has been like watching someone picking apart a house one plank at a time while leaving the structure upright.
You know that in the end the building will collapse, but to the untrained eye it looks as strong as ever. And then comes a mild breeze and it topples over.
Partially the caution is to save lives of Ukrainian soldiers, and to try out new robotics tactics. But part of it is due to Rasputitsa being early. Having your flamethrower robotic dogs stuck in mud is not helping the cause after all.
I will though give TG grade A+ for being patient, it is though very unlike her. Instead of the usual “smash”, we got “pickings”. Regardless, it has been “effective” in the end.
It started about 3 days ago, with a unit here and unit there going missing as Russian units fell back to more easily defended spots. At the same time no more meatwaves came ambling forth. Their lines had become to picked apart to be able to hold, and the units to picked apart to be viable.
It is also clear that Russia is favouring positions with good logistics, what little arrives to this part of the front, must arrive to their soldiers. TG was way to good at blowing up their final logistics leg over open fields.
And with their much-anticipated North Korean artillery very visibly failing in spectacular bonfires, Russia had no choice, and with a whimper entire sections of the Kursk frontline fell back.
Obviously this should not be over-interpreted as a big victory, but it is telling about the state of the Russian army. Seeing Russia falling back even an inch “voluntarily” in Kursk is big. They would never do that if they had a choice.
Tank Girl herself is though not so happy about it, after all she now has to start to pick apart new lines one board at a time. Thing is though that at some point, Russia will not have enough planks left to erect a house as they fall back, and at that point things will become very interesting.
If you haven’t noticed, when TG is grumpy things are going well, it is when she is happy things are hard because then she has a problem to solve. Sitting on her **** slowly winning… grump grump."
"Before we talk about Russia I think I should write about The Spectacular Trumpian Victories…
I have never seen something cave as quickly as Trump’s World Trade War. Let us go through what Trump got for his troubles, and with that I do not talk about what he believes he got, but in reality.
Remember that he first picked a fight with Colombia back in the day, or as we usually state it, last week. He wanted Colombia to accept prisoners via military aircraft, so he levied 25 percent tariffs on Colombia.
After 4 hours Trump made a deal with Colombia and claimed victory. What did he get? Colombia reaffirmed the existing program of returning illegal immigrants from the US via civilian aircraft, a program more than a decade old. End result? Coffee is now 10 percent more expensive in the US, the prices did not go down in the end, so someone is making extra profit.
Next up on Trumps list of victories is Panama. He seems to somehow have called off the attack after striking a deal giving the US preference in shipping slots, partial control over the canal company, military bases and the right to have 4 000 military and civilian staff on said bases.
Sounds like a good deal? Problem is that US has had that since 1999. In fact, they had total control over the canal company until Trump meddled, now there are Panamanian partial control of it. Oh, what a glorious win.
Then we had Mexico. During a phone call between Sheinbaum and Trump Mexico promised to place 10 000 soldiers along the border to combat drugs and hinder illegal immigrants to enter the US. Sounds good doesn’t it?
Only problem is that they were already there to fight the cartels, and there was a deal between US and Mexico for years about it. So, Trump caved 4 hours before the Tariffs would come into place. Avocados increased in price with 10 percent and has not gone down.
Trump’s most spectacular victory is though against Canada. Trudeau spun him so far up on the ledges that he is seeing the moon clearly.
He promised to spend 1.3 billion Canadian dollars on border control and defence against the US. But this is part of a deal that Canada made on the 17 th of December 2024 with Biden. Some other things were included in that deal that Canada didn’t really like, so Trump agreed to remove those parts.
So, Trump negotiated away parts beneficial for the US and got less out of it compared to what he already had. And it is getting way worse. Turns out that Canadians didn’t like things, and that they are truly petty when they fight.
Canada blocked sales of alcohol from Red States, those that voted in favour of Trump. Canada never reinstated the sales of that alcohol. And to make things even worse, there is a feverish drive in Canada to not buy US goods at all.
It is estimated that US is set to loose half of their sales in consumer goods in 2025. I have never seen winning on this scale before, exactly as Trump promised.
So, the big one. The Greenland/Denmark/EU/UK Tariffs, the mother of all Trade Wars. Where did that one go? In a whimper he stated that EU is truly mean to the US, and that UK is out of line. He then whimpered that we are “truly horrible”. I agree with him, we are gloriously horrible to him.
So, what did Trump get out of his threats? Nothing. Not a single thing. Except for negative things. So far two countries have informally dropped out of purchasing F-35 jets. Oops. On top of that he now has 150 military technicians sitting at Pituffik Space Base being under informal Base Arrest.
Now over to China, here he is actually going through with things and a 10 percent tariff is now in place. China countered by stopping imports of US oil and gas, and are instead opting to buy, wait for it, drumroll… Canadian.
They have also declared that they might turn off Google Services in China and filed suit against the US in WTO. Otherwise, they are not picking up the phone.
The Orange Petulant Toddler in Chief did not like this, so he ordered the US Postal Service to not deliver packages from China. In other words, he stole packages from US citizens and companies that said citizens and companies had ordered and paid for.
No Temu pink thongs and dildos for the US citizens, and no spare parts for Chinese machines for US Companies. Bigly Win!
Many believe that Trump and China are somehow working together to destroy the US, this is far from the truth. Trump hates China on a primordial level, and Xi is not much fond of Trump either. Now, the US doesn’t like China even on a Biden-day, but this goes far beyond the normal US anti- China rhetoric.
We tried to get to why, and there is a persistent rumour in London that China shafted Trump in a business deal in the early ‘noughties. We are still digging into it obviously.
On the home front Trump is doing Gods Work, truly. He has bumped off USAID, and now he has offered every single CIA employee a severance package. USAID was a front for CIA all along, but it did a lot of good while being that. So, the attack on USAID was the first strike against the CIA.
We believe he will follow up with attacking other US Intelligence Agencies. This is all a must for him to secure the power in his hostile takeover. He must achieve total control of all armed branches of the government to secure his coup.
Problem for the US is that it is blinding US totally. It will for at least a period of months be totally blind against any threats from outside. Basically, he is giving terrorist organisations a field day. EU is obviously also reaping the benefits of this, as long as the US is blind it is not able to perform any operations against us.
Now back to Ukraine/Russia.
Ukraine
The General Staff is embarking on a mission to create Army Corps. The only reason to do this is to get units big enough to perform large scale offensive manoeuvres. At the same time 50 000 soldiers are being transferred from non-Combat roles in the West, to the Army in the East.
This is done to improve manpower ratio visavi Russia, and there are good reasons for this, but to understand that we have to go to Russia.
Russia
Russia is now hurting in pretty much every way imaginable. Their export revenue is gone, their liquidity is gone, they have run out of economical means to continue, their arms production have failed, their ally seems less and less inclined to even help out, they are rapidly running out of equipment, and they are also running out of soldiers.
In January they lost 48 000 soldiers, half KIA and half WIA. At the same time, they recruited 5 700 soldiers across the entirety of Russia. Not even the new record level of 4 million Ruble as a sign on bonus helped, and 40 000 dollars/Euro is not small change in Russia.
This means that the Russian army in Ukraine dwindled with 42 000 men. In November of 2024 Russia had 120 000 fewer soldiers than Ukraine did, now that number has hiked to 200 000. This is obviously totally unsustainable in both medium and long-term.
Even short-term it is problematic to fight an offensive war with staffing issues. Russia should truly have slammed the breaks back in October/November and gone into a defensive posture only.
That would have conserved manpower and ammunition. It would also have changed the attrition ratio considerably. Currently Russia has a 7:1 casualty ratio, and if they had gone into defensive posture that would have dropped to something like 2:1 due to technological disparity.
But, with a far larger population, 2:1 loss rate would have put Russia in a better position than Ukraine long-term. Thankfully this did not happen, and now Russia has a much lower effective combat power than Ukraine.
Now you will correctly say that Russia is still advancing, this is true. But all their advances come at a price in manpower and munitions that is non-sustainable, all they are doing is speeding up their downfall.
We are seeing clear signs of this now, let us take a gander at the frontlines.
Chasiv Yar is said to have fallen, this is though only partially true. Ukraine is still hanging on to the Western edges of the City, but most importantly, they are still holding on to that mahoosive Soviet nuclear bunker complex in the forest.
And from that one they are performing raids into Chasiv Yar proper via underground tunnels and culverts. That being said, it is at the going rate just a question of time before Ukraine is pushed out completely from the City, and after that Russia will be threatening to encircle the bunker and it must be abandoned.
In Toretsk things have mostly stalled out for now, Russia takes a house, Ukraine takes it back, Russia takes a field on the outskirts, Ukraine takes it back. But, around every ten times Russia manages to hold on, but the price is terrible for them.
In Pokrovsk Russia seems to have given up on performing their usual frontal assault, they just do not have the manpower and shells to do it. So, instead they are attempting to encircle the place.
This is a massive undertaking, and the going is extremely slow and costly since they need to take roughly 1 000 fields and treelines to pull it off, and Ukraine here has a massive logistics advantage.
Unless something unexpected happens I do not think Russia is able to do it. They will run out of troops and equipment long before they can take it. And even if they take it, Russia would at that point be in such a weakened state that the war is over.
Taking Pokrovsk is a far worse project than taking Bakhmut or Avdiivka. Here Ukraine has 10 times the logistics compared to both of those combined. Here they have the manpower advantage, and the advantage of firepower. Something that they did not have in either Bakhmut or Avdiivka.
But for now, Russia is advancing at a snails pace, but taking Pokrovsk will at the going rate take between 12 – 24 months.
Now, let us take a step back and look at things from the perspective of Russia’s stated goals of taking all of Luhansk, Donetsk, Zhaporizhzhia and Kherson.
Taking all of Kherson is just a ludicrous proposition, there’s after all a huge honking moat in the way named Dniepro. This obviously does not hinder Russia from attempting to get over. This has created somewhat of a boom business in making small boats in Russia, and the river is slowly filling up with glass fibre hulls and cheap Chinese outboard engines.
Let us just say that it is impossible to achieve in this decade and move on towards Zhaporizhzhia. Here Russia is making a lot of noise about having taken 2 villages after 2 years of fighting for them. At the going rate this means that it will take Russia a decade to take it.
In Luhansk Russia has a Kupyansk sized problem, here they have literally not advanced an inch in 2 years. On top of that, a bit to the south they attempted to reach the border river to Kharkiv Oblast, but that also failed.
In Donetsk Russia is making minor progress in Chasiv Yar, Toretsk and Pokrovsk, that is true. But to take all of Donetsk they will have to take something much bigger. Even if they take all 3, they still have a long stretch to gnaw through to reach Kramatorsk-Slovyansk.
If you look at a map you will notice that just getting there is a big feat, and they are big cities with more than 300 000 citizens, and behind them are a huge network of roads and rail lines. To be brutal, Russia just can’t do it. Not even long-term.
And this leaves us with Kursk, the bleeding wound in the body of Russia. Things are not well inside Kursk from a Russian perspective.
The North Koreans have pulled out as you know, that created a hole that Russia had to fill with Russian units. They failed in achieving this. At the same time Russian units in Kursk are suffering unsustainable casualty rates.
And to make things even worse, Russia has run out of ammo and shells here. The manpower and ammo shortage are slightly baffling. We do know that Russia is low on both, but the problem is mainly visible on this section of the frontline.
The reason is obviously political, Putin wants Pokrovsk, Toretsk and Chasiv Yar taken, so new recruits and any ammo they can find, or produce is sent there, with Kursk seemingly getting nothing.
Most likely in Putins mind Kursk is North Koreas problem, after all they have a deal stating that North Korea should help out in Kursk. Problem is that Russia ran out of North Koreans, and the ones remaining are busy resting far behind the lines after taking 40 percent losses.
Same goes for equipment, the idea seems to have been that North Korea should furnish cartridges and shells for this section of the frontline. And they did do just that but only issued that to the North Korean troops.
And to top off Russia’s problems, North Korea is only delivering 170mm shells and no longer has any 152mm on stock. Oops.
The plan was that the massive North Korean artillery division with their top-of-the-line 170mm self-propelled tracked and armoured howitzer’s would do the fire missions against the Ukrainians.
And as they arrived and clattered forward the biggest artillery duel began, and an entire military world looked on. We all wanted to know what would happen, we all wanted real world experience and data, West, Ukraine, Russia, South Korea and North Korea all drooled over the chance to see how good the blasted things truly are, and what the real stats are.
Yes, the range was indeed 35km, yes they made big booms as they landed. It was most impressive really. But with no Korean troops around to protect with walking fire-lines, they got used as counter-battery and fire support missions for armour.
And the precision was also somewhat lacking. I’m unfair, it is on par with most unguided artillery, but in a time of Excalibur and other guided ultra-precision shells, lightning-fast ballistic computers, and state-of-the-art artillery radars… let us just say that North Korea has good **** that is not capable to cope with today’s battlefield.
And with Tank Girl being the pro she is, she had prepared for their arrival with the best that the West could ever deliver in the way of artillery. She had that backed up with the best available drones and missile artillery. She also had all of it served by the best crews in all of Ukraine.
If you have been following the number of boofed artillery you will notice that it had dwindled considerably. The number was down almost to an average of ten artillery systems per day. But, as soon as that North Korean artillery was deployed those numbers skyrocketed up to an average of 50 per day, with the peak being 62 in a single day, and yesterday it was 52.
All of that increase is the North Korean monster-howitzer’s. The division had 4 artillery brigades in it, with 48 howitzer’s each, giving a total of 192 howitzer’s. In 5 days, half of those is gone. I would at this point assume that Kim Yo-jong is having one of her famous temper tantrums.
Something I find interesting is that the Punderati has almost not covered Kursk. I guess it is not that interesting since there has been no big advances, nor a fertile ground for doom and gloom. Instead, it has been fairly slow plodding meticulous advance on the part of Ukraine.
Yes, Russia managed a couple of decent counterstrikes’ initially, but after that Ukraine took a field here, a treeline there, a trench, a small village now and then, rinse repeat. It has been like watching someone picking apart a house one plank at a time while leaving the structure upright.
You know that in the end the building will collapse, but to the untrained eye it looks as strong as ever. And then comes a mild breeze and it topples over.
Partially the caution is to save lives of Ukrainian soldiers, and to try out new robotics tactics. But part of it is due to Rasputitsa being early. Having your flamethrower robotic dogs stuck in mud is not helping the cause after all.
I will though give TG grade A+ for being patient, it is though very unlike her. Instead of the usual “smash”, we got “pickings”. Regardless, it has been “effective” in the end.
It started about 3 days ago, with a unit here and unit there going missing as Russian units fell back to more easily defended spots. At the same time no more meatwaves came ambling forth. Their lines had become to picked apart to be able to hold, and the units to picked apart to be viable.
It is also clear that Russia is favouring positions with good logistics, what little arrives to this part of the front, must arrive to their soldiers. TG was way to good at blowing up their final logistics leg over open fields.
And with their much-anticipated North Korean artillery very visibly failing in spectacular bonfires, Russia had no choice, and with a whimper entire sections of the Kursk frontline fell back.
Obviously this should not be over-interpreted as a big victory, but it is telling about the state of the Russian army. Seeing Russia falling back even an inch “voluntarily” in Kursk is big. They would never do that if they had a choice.
Tank Girl herself is though not so happy about it, after all she now has to start to pick apart new lines one board at a time. Thing is though that at some point, Russia will not have enough planks left to erect a house as they fall back, and at that point things will become very interesting.
If you haven’t noticed, when TG is grumpy things are going well, it is when she is happy things are hard because then she has a problem to solve. Sitting on her **** slowly winning… grump grump."
Dirtyderekbracken
Well-known member
I read this and wonder how much longer the psycho dwarf can carry on ... running out of money ,manpower and material .. when one thing collapses surely the rest will just disintegrate
Just been told that Psycho Dwarf and Big Z have agreed to meet. The where and when not yet known.
Believed to be as a consequence of economic collapse, Ukraine making more gains in Kursk and pressure from China.
Believed to be as a consequence of economic collapse, Ukraine making more gains in Kursk and pressure from China.
BobUpnDown
Well-known member
Don't shake the hand or drink his brew.. always thought it would be China that can get PooTin kicking & squealing to the table..
Orange man child won't like his thunder being taken.. let's hope Xi really leans into Psycho & makes him get back to 1990's borders & fully out of Ukraine including Crimea..
Dirtyderekbracken
Well-known member
there was some twitter rumblings a couple of days ago about the orange shitgibbon saying about a major brake through, but it kind of melted away and then the news came about mineral rights agreement.. so I thought it was that ..
The USA took distance limits off Ukrainian strikes with US weapons. Z was very clever tempting Orangeholio with rare earths. If he can get Russia booted out of Donbas and Crimea by allowing American companies to mine, it's probably a pill they'll swallow. I don't know much about Putin agreeing to the meeting with Z ... even if it happens, I don't expect much from it.
Littlejimmy
Well-known member
Tangerine Palpatine will take credit for whatever happens, even if he does sweet FA
sanddancer57
Member
What the hell they doing opening windows in this weather it's bloody freezing they will catch their death of cold ffsMind your heads
Prune60 (@prune602.bsky.social)
‼️ “In Russia, a high-ranking official and an Investigative Committee colonel fell out of a window on the same day” 🇷🇺: Gravity Happens https://www.moscowtimes.ru/2025/02/05/vrossii-vodin-den-vipali-izokna-visokopostavlennii-chinovnik-ipolkovnik-sk-a154280
Getting things on the hoof a bit..
Matey just found out that his presence is required. This is precursor to the "meeting".
bsky.app
Matey just found out that his presence is required. This is precursor to the "meeting".
The Ukrainian Review (@theukrainianreview.bsky.social)
🕊️🇺🇦 "We are on the verge of a major attempt to stop the fighting. We are waiting for February 12," — People's Deputy Honcharenko Negotiations are planned for this date with the participation of Foreign Ministers of 🇫🇷France, 🇩🇪Germany, 🇵🇱Poland, 🇪🇸Spain, 🇮🇹Italy, 🇬🇧UK, 🇪🇺EU, 🇺🇦Ukraine, 🇺🇸USA.
bsky.app
Hap
Well-known member
If Putin is ready to negotiate, the terms are going to have to be something severe. Or he’ll be back, but more prepared, next time.Getting things on the hoof a bit..
Matey just found out that his presence is required. This is precursor to the "meeting".
The Ukrainian Review (@theukrainianreview.bsky.social)
🕊️🇺🇦 "We are on the verge of a major attempt to stop the fighting. We are waiting for February 12," — People's Deputy Honcharenko Negotiations are planned for this date with the participation of Foreign Ministers of 🇫🇷France, 🇩🇪Germany, 🇵🇱Poland, 🇪🇸Spain, 🇮🇹Italy, 🇬🇧UK, 🇪🇺EU, 🇺🇦Ukraine, 🇺🇸USA.
Tank Girl has stepped on the gas a little in Kursk.
Should see some advances ... Viktorovka axis
ooh, and more defenestrations
bsky.app
Should see some advances ... Viktorovka axis
ooh, and more defenestrations
Meduza in English (@meduza.io)
Vadim Stroykin, a Russian singer-songwriter who has spoken out against the war in Ukraine, reportedly “fell” out of a window while security officials were raiding his apartment on Thursday. Reports on Telegram suggested he died by suicide. https://buff.ly/417pn96
bsky.app
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It's been like that for well over a year. His imminent demise has been predicted almost daily.
Yet still it goes on.