Ammunition doesn’t seem to be a problem at the moment.
Meanwhile, the oil depot in Engels is still burning.
Bavovna!
Chaltyr is a suburb to the west of Rostov.
Another Russian command post bites the dust.
Another 1,830 Russians who should have stayed home.
The only question about this is why did it take three years.
The Russians did a pretty thorough job of razing Vovchansk.
Do you suppose this is a legitimate problem the ship is having or a ruse to create an environmental disaster for Germany?
The tanker was built in 2006 and is on the list of Russian 'shadow fleet' vessels compiled by Greenpeace. It was on its way from Ust-Luga port in Russia to Port Said in Egypt. The reasons for the loss of control are still unknown.
According to the publication, Bremen Fighter emergency tug and the Arkona multi-purpose vessel were sent to the tanker due to the threat of a storm.Imagine if those 99,000 tons of oil spill into the sea.
Transnistria is still freezing.
There is a post on Bluesky of a woman who lives in Transnistria whose fruit trees are being cut down for firewood and a video of her crying while they are doing it. For whatever reason Bluesky has a feature that prevents sharing or embedding it and says you have to be logged in to view it.
It's here if you want to see it.
This story indicates that while Transnistria has no gas, it still has plenty of gaslighting. Moldova and Ukraine have each offered help.
"Over these past days, we have not heard any concrete offers of help from either the European Union, United States or Moldova," Transnistria's Foreign Minister Vitaly Ignatiev said during a parliamentary session, according to local media reports.
"Everyone is counting on there being Russian help with gas supplies, to avoid monstrous humanitarian consequences," he added.
A Russian drone with an anti-drone cage.
I’ve seen it all now.
A Russian nurse describes the attitudes of the wounded she sees.
The Meduza site has a story up that says Russia’s oligarchs are unhappy that the war continues to drag on.
As Meduza’s source in the Russian government put it,
“The main emotion is disappointment. We expected the war to end, for the fighting to end. Fatigue has been the main feeling for a long time. We’re already tired of waiting, even. It feels like you’re going deeper and deeper every day. We also expected some kind of lifting of sanctions in exchange for peace. Now, they’re inflicting more and more pain.”
The state of the Russian economy indeed became a “point of tension” by the end of 2024, Meduza’s sources said. Big business spoke openly aboutits dissatisfaction with the Central Bank’s high key rate. In the words of a Russian consultant who works with both the Putin administration and big businesses: “For now, the majority [of companies] are surviving somehow, everyone is putting on a brave face. Some are even growing. But this is happening due to the cannibalization of the assets of departing foreign companies, the weak ones. But everyone understands this won’t last forever. It definitely won’t get better going forward.”
….
“The president likes to fight, it’s exciting for him. Why stop halfway if you can put the final squeeze on them?” one source close to the Putin administration asked rhetorically. At the same time, this person said that some “patriots” among the Russian elite (primarily, high-ranking security officials) are unhappy with the president’s approach. “What they have is not enough,” he explained. “[They need] a mobilization, a complete transition to a war footing, and that’s not happening.”
According to several of Meduza’s sources, Donald Trump’s victory in the U.S. presidential election renewed “certain hopes” for peace among high-ranking Russian officials. Now, however, these hopes are “already not that high.” “The [Russian] president has his demands — the entire territory of four [of Ukraine’s] regions. Trump’s conditions are different. It’s unclear where the compromise lies,” said one source close to the Kremlin.
Oops 😅
Hey, some nasty fumes never hurt anyone, right?
Gatchina is about 45 km south of St. Petersburg.
Scholz blocks German aid package that includes air defense systems.
This was a proposal for new aid. Scholz said that what they are doing already is enough.
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🇩🇪🚫🇺🇦 Scholz blocks new military aid package to Ukraine worth €3 billion, — Der Spiegel
🤔 MoD and Foreign Ministry planned to deliver this aid before the parliamentary elections on February 23, but Scholz veto it over voter concerns.
❗️3 IRIS-T batteries, Patriot systems, howitzers and ammunition.
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— MAKS 24 👀🇺🇦 (@maks23.bsky.social) January 10, 2025 at 3:04 AM
This German aid package was already in the works.
▪️22 Leopard 1 main battle tanks;
▪️25 Marder infantry fighting vehicles;
▪️Iris-T SLM/SLS air defense system;
▪️16 howitzers;
▪️2 launchers for the Patriot air defense system;
▪️7 Gepard SPAAGs and 120,000 shells for them;
▪️3,500 Helsing UAVs
▪️six Sea King helicopters with weapons;
▪️250,000 artillery ammunition;
▪️a number of other weapons and equipment.
Wishful thinking
Gosh, I wonder what he was planning to do.
Do you suppose he was looking for a job?
This would indicate the loss of all or almost all of Toretsk.
The final aid package for Ukraine from the Biden Administration.
- AIM-7, RIM-7, and AIM-9M missiles for air defense;
- Air-to-ground munitions;
- Support equipment for F-16s;
- Armored bridging systems;
- Secure communications equipment;
- Small arms and ammunition; and
- Spare parts, ancillary equipment, services, training, and transportation.
The Czech Republic steps up.
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The Czech Republic successfully delivered roughly 1.5 million large-calibre artillery shells to Ukraine in 2024, over 4000 per day.
Czech Defense Minister Černochová confirms they intend to hit that mark again in 2025 through their ammunition procurement mission.
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— OSINTtechnical (@osinttechnical.bsky.social) January 9, 2025 at 4:34 PM
The EU steps up. Hopefully they will be able to follow through on this.
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⚡️EU ready to lead in Ukraine support if US steps back, chief diplomat says.
The European Union is prepared to take a leading role in supporting Ukraine if U.S. backing wanes, EU chief diplomat Kaja Kallas said on Jan. 9 at Ramstein Air Base in Germany.
kyivindependent.com/eu-ready-to-...
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— The Kyiv Independent (@kyivindependent.com) January 9, 2025 at 2:11 PM
The Kyiv Independent has a good story that chronicles an ace drone team near Kupiansk.
Here’s an excerpt:
After a day and night of steady snowfall, the sky begins to clear just before dawn, during the silent drive to Ukrainian drone positions south of Kupiansk in Kharkiv Oblast.
Closer to the ground though, a stubborn layer of fog continues to hang, through which hares and deer can be seen bouncing out of the way of the drab green pick-up truck.
The drone team wakes up around six in the morning. Though less than two kilometers from Russian positions themselves, they have set up a comfy dugout, complete with bunk beds and a heavy-duty gas heater.
“We'll have a more or less quiet day,” says Oleksandr “Skhid,” the 26-year-old commander and navigator, as he opens his work laptop in the dugout, “but since there's fog, it means that more of their infantry will be able to slip through, as there isn't very strong surveillance on our side right now.”
“The last time we had a major mechanized assault there was bad weather.”
As the rest of the four-person team is still getting out of bed, it quickly becomes clear that the day will be far from quiet.
McHaleskyy’s Navy
Because one big-ass machine gun is never enough.
This analyst says that Ukraine's survival as a state depends on it being able to resolve organizational issues with its military. He includes the usual remarks that Russia has a manpower advantage because of its larger population, but I don’t agree with that.
With Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine set to pass the three-year mark next month, it is clear that the policies adopted in Kyiv and other Western capitals since 2022 are no longer working. Ukraine’s manpower problems cannot be overcome via reliance on patriotic sentiment and superior combat experience alone. A more systematic approach to training and equipping new troops is clearly necessary, and must be accompanied by measures to improve leadership and accountability within the Ukrainian military.
Likewise, piecemeal deliveries of weapons will not convince Russia to end the invasion. The extended debates and regular delays that have characterized international military support for Ukraine since 2022 have done much to persuade Putin that he can ultimately outlast the West.
The Kremlin dictator is facing his own manpower issues amid catastrophic Russian losses. However, he can call upon a population more than four times the size of Ukraine’s and can also afford to attract volunteers with large cash incentives. The recent addition of more than ten thousand North Korean troops has further eased the pressure on Russia’s army recruiters.
If Ukraine’s partners really wish to change the mood in Moscow, they must make a far more long-term commitment to providing Kyiv with military support and demonstrate their resolve to defeating Russia on the battlefield. Wars of attrition like the current Russo-Ukrainian War are won and lost through the deployment of superior resources. On paper, the West has the collective wealth and technological capabilities to completely overwhelm Russia. However, almost three years since the start of the full-scale invasion, Western support for Ukraine remains hampered by talk of compromise and fear of escalation. Putin interprets this as weakness and is emboldened.
Here’s an analysis of Ukraine’s new offensive in Kursk.
Ukraine Has Continued Learning. Much as they did during their initial push into Kursk in August 2024, it appears the Ukrainians have continued to learn and adapt since arriving in Kursk. They have applied these lessons in their latest assault. Key lessons include the use of EW, counter-drone operations, effective use of engineers for mobility support to ground forces, tank-infantry integration, and the integration of EW and long-range fires.
Russia Was Surprised – Again. Well, no surprise that Russia was surprised here. However, this is more of a tactical than a strategic surprise. Unlike the original thrust into Kursk in August 2024, the Russians appear to have taken this in their stride so far. But it demonstrates again the fallacy of the ‘transparent battlefield’ dogma. As I wrote when Ukraine conducted its original thrust into Kursk last year:
Ukraine has achieved surprise. This is an important theme to note given the obsession of some with describing this war as a ‘transparent battlefield’. This, again, shows that the modern battlefield is far from transparent, and that deception activities, good intelligence, and surprise are crucial elements of modern war.
Russian Responses. We know that the Russians have already executed attacks on the Kursk salient in the past 48 hours, part of their larger campaign which has secured around 35-40% of ground seized by Ukrainians last year.
It isn’t the same as cracking a communications code, but it helps to see what the enemy sees.
A scene that repeats itself many times each day across Ukraine.
AI is getting smarter all the time.
The shovel adds extra flavor.
Well, that’s awkward.
