Reports of successful Ukrainian offensives continued today, potentially putting Russian supply lines both northeast and northwest of Kyiv in significant jeopardy. Russian forces, meanwhile, continue to show little skill in responding to such threats—and indeed, even continue to focus what little air power they are willing to risk on bombing less-protected civilian areas to the south while avoiding military-to-military engagement.
The Russian plan appears to be unchanged since the early days of the war; facing unexpected resistance, Russia is instead retaliating against civilians in an attempt to inflict as much non-military damage as possible. It is the military "strategy" Russia has fallen into in each of its recent conflicts, and we're now seeing that it may come less from the strategic plans of Russian leaders and more from consistent Russian incompetence at carrying out tactics that do not focus on unarmed foes. The United States government directly accused Russia of committing war crimes today, citing those attacks.
President Biden is in Europe for a barrage of meetings with foreign leaders, and further international sanctions against Russia will likely be announced in the coming days. The economic chaos imposed by current sanctions is reportedly putting Putin's government in such dire straits that they have warned overseas diplomats that their next paychecks might not come.
Meanwhile, the Ukrainian military continues to have great success in picking off Russian supply convoys, armor, and now even artillery units—and Russia cannot easily replace any of the equipment being lost. Today's updates:
Thursday, Mar 24, 2022 · 4:37:55 AM +00:00 · kos
An Army that trains properly and knows how to do shit:
And then there’s the army that clearly does none of that, and has lost 10,000 soldiers in a single month:
(If you see some US soldiers seemingly wandering aimlessly in the top video, it’s actually training NCOs observing the exercise in order to grade performances and offer corrections.)
Thursday, Mar 24, 2022 · 6:20:40 AM +00:00 · kos
Holy shit:
It may be unconfirmed (as I add this update) that Ukraine precipitated this attack, but seems pretty confirmed that the port is one big fireball.
Incidentally, this is the port where Russia filmed this video of them offloading military equipment with desert camo, likely from Syria:
