🇷🇺🇺🇦 The first footage of the captured Panther appeared near the Stupki railway station in the north of Bakhmut.

🇷🇺🇺🇦 A column of Ukrainian troops was hit while withdrawing units from Bakhmut.

AFU withdrawal from Bakhmut on muddy country roads, which are also being shelled by artillery

🇷🇺🇺🇦 First Person Assault : The Combat Work of the Airborne Assault Team .

Approaching the building under a dense smoke screen, the paratroopers threw grenades at the militants who were shooting back, broke into the building and completed their destruction with the help of small arms.

During the short-lived battle, six servicemen of the Armed Forces of Ukraine were destroyed. There are no losses on our side.

🇺🇲🇺🇦🇷🇺 The head of the Pentagon about Artemovsk (Bakhmut): the city has more symbolic significance than strategic

🇺🇦 Employees of the Odessa military registration and enlistment office went on the hunt for Ukrainian conscripts riding on electric scooters.

🇷🇺🇺🇦 Adjustable bombs hit Ukrainian positions and warehouses in Avdiivka.

Recently, the number of high-precision bombs used by the Russian Aerospace Forces has increased markedly, which cannot but rejoice.

🇷🇺 The question of my political ambitions was repeatedly discussed. I have no political ambitions. Our task is to fight and protect the interests of the Russian Federation.


Evgeny Prigozhin (owner of Wagner PMC)

🇺🇸🇨🇳🌐 "We may be moving into a new world where US supremacy is no more — and where the much vaunted Chinese takeover as the world’s leading economy is finally coming to fruition"

- UnHerd

The U.S. Is Not Ready for the Era of ‘Great Power’ Conflict

Since 2018, the military has shifted to focus on China and Russia after decades fighting insurgencies, but it still faces challenges to produce weapons and come up with new ways of waging war.

▪️ Despite an annual defense budget of more than $800 billion, the shift has been delayed by a preoccupation with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the pursuit of big-ticket weapons that didn’t pan out, internal U.S. government debates over budgets and disagreement over the urgency of the threat from Beijing, according to current and former U.S. defense officials and commanders. Continuing concerns in the Mideast, especially about Iran, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine have absorbed attention and resources.

▪️ Corporate consolidation across defense industry has left the Pentagon with fewer arms manufacturers. Shipyards are struggling to produce the subs the needed to counter China’s larger naval fleet. Weapon designers are rushing to catch up with China and Russia in hypersonics.

▪️ The U.S. military’s success in the Mideast came in part from air superiority and a less well-equipped foe. A conflict with China would be very different. The U.S. Asian bases and ports under attack and would need to support its forces over long, vulnerable routes.

▪️ If a conflict with China gave Russia the confidence to take further action in Eastern Europe, the U.S. and its allies would need to fight a two-front war. China and Russia are both nuclear powers.

▪️ The threat is mounting... Decades of ever bigger military budgets, have improved the lethality of China’s air force, missiles and submarines, and better training has created a more modern force from what was once a military of rural recruits.

▪️ China is developing weapons and other capabilities to destroy an opponent’s satellites. The CIA said President Xi Jinping has set 2027 as a deadline for the Chinese military to be ready to carry out a Taiwan invasion.

▪️ A China in control of the South China Sea and Taiwan would hold sway over waters through which trillions of dollars in trade passes each year. It would also command supplies of advanced semiconductors, threaten the security of U.S. allies such as Japan.

▪️ Many of the cutting-edge weapons systems the Pentagon believes will tilt the battlefield in its favor won’t be ready until the 2030s, raising the risk that China may be tempted to act before the U.S. effort bears fruit.

▪️At times, the pace has been slower than Lt. Gen. Hinote would have liked. “As we began to push for change, we lost most of the budget battles,” he said. “There is more sense of urgency now, but we know how far we have to go.”

📎 Wall Street Journal

🇨🇳📈 UBS Group raised its forecast for China’s economic growth for this year and next, citing a stronger-than-expected recovery after Covid restrictions were dropped and an expected boost to consumer confidence.

📎 Bloomberg

🇨🇳📈 Chances are high that China will meet or exceed its relatively modest economic growth target of 5% for this year, a former central bank official says, with a more stable property market helping underpin the recovery.

📎 Bloomberg

🇷🇺🇪🇺 The EU has hit Russia with 10 rounds of sanctions, but Moscow appears to be successfully finding ways to purchase key technologies.

- Bloomberg

⚡️🇷🇺🇺🇦 Ukrainian soldiers in Bakhmut: ‘Our troops are not being protected’

Bakhmut. 
During their brief visits to the nearby town of Kostiantynivka, Ukrainian infantrymen told the Kyiv Independent of unprepared, poorly-trained battalions being thrown into the front line meat grinder to survive as best they could with little support from armored vehicles, mortars, artillery, drones and tactical information. 

“We don’t get any support,” says a soldier named Serhiy, who has been fighting on the front lines in Bakhmut.

They say that Russian artillery, infantry fighting vehicles and armored personnel carriers are often allowed to strike Ukrainian positions for hours or days without being shut down by Ukrainian heavy weapons. Some complained of poor coordination and situational awareness, allowing this to happen or making it even worse. 

Mortarmen spoke of extreme ammunition scarcity and having to use weapons dating back to World War II. Drones that are supposed to provide critical reconnaissance information are also scarce and are being lost at very high rates in some parts of the battlefield.

All this leads to terrifying casualties of both dead and wounded. "The battalion came in in the middle of December… between all the different platoons, there were 500 of us," says Borys, a combat medic from Odesa Oblast fighting around Bakhmut. "A month ago, there were literally 150 of us."

“When you go out to the position, it’s not even a 50/50 chance that you’ll come out of there (alive),” says the older Serhiy. “It’s more like 30/70.”

- “Kyiv” Independent

If the Kyiv Independent is admitting this, it’s bad. Pro Ukraine Twitter has also turned distinctly dark in the last 36 hours, and is now conceding that:

1) Loss ratios are not in favor of Ukraine
2) Elite/NATO trained units needed for their own planned offensives are being grinded down

Bakhmut Meat Grinder will be the death of the AFU.