One hundred days have passed since the beginning of the military special operation in Ukraine, and no one knows how much more lies ahead. The special operation has not become a real war for Russia: there was no mobilization (and not only in terms of conscription into the army), there were no significant changes in the usual way of life (with the exception of the situation in some border areas and the closure of airports in the south of the country), the WW2 slogan of the total warfare: "Everything for the front, everything for the Victory" has not been proclaimed. Even the cessation of air traffic with the West did not affect the lives of the vast majority in any way: two years of quarantine due to the pandemic affected, and only a few percent of our citizens always travelled to Europe.
But this does not mean that the country is not changing: the most serious processes are underway, tectonic shifts are outlined both in self-consciousness and in the way of life. Most of them have not been formulated, let alone formalized in the form of directives or resolutions, but their predestination and inevitability are already in the air, already being felt by more and more people. Solidarity and justice, service and responsibility, independence and concentration have not yet become the main slogans of our life, but the future belongs to them, they will become the main components in the recipe for our new way of life. It will not be worked out by us after the victory, but will become its main condition. (Based on https://ria.ru/20220604/ukraina-1793058514.html?in=t)

The armed forces of the Russian Federation in the Odessa region shot down a Ukrainian plane delivering weapons and ammunition to the Armed Forces of Ukraine. This was announced by the representative of the Russian Ministry of Defense, Major General Igor Konashenkov.
"Russian air defence systems in the Odessa region shot down an aircraft of the military transport aviation of the Air Force of Ukraine, which was delivering weapons and ammunition," he said during a briefing.

After Popasnaya was cleared, one of the most dramatic episodes in the history of the combat service of the AFV began. A powerful breakthrough of the Russian army to Severodonetsk was made possible largely thanks to these machines. Presumably, in the early morning of May 26, two AFV platoons, advancing from different sides, attacked the positions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. According to preliminary data, during a quick attack, at least eight tanks and three armoured vehicles were destroyed, and Russian tanks destroyed the protected enemy facilities after neutralizing the equipment.

According to unconfirmed reports, the crew of one of the AFVs later managed to hit a low-flying Mi-8 helicopter that appeared in the area after reporting of a breakthrough by two battalions of "unknown type vehicles." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MoQzC-aF_G4

To the question of why denazification is needed in Ukraine. The Bandera people have nothing sacred at all. In impotent rage, Ukrainian nationalists set fire to the wooden All Saints Skete of the Svyatogorsk Lavra of the Moscow Patriarchate in the DPR.

@ChDambiev

Ukrainian vandals threw Russian Prince Alexander Nevsky monument from pedestal

Video of the demolition of the monument to the knyaz who saved Kievan Rus from the raids of foreign invaders, installed in Kharkov, is published by local Telegram channels.

The monument to Alexander Nevsky was installed in August 2004 during the celebration of the 350th anniversary of the city of Kharkov. Since then, he has been repeatedly attacked by vandals.

A few days ago, vandals doused the obelisk with paint to the Soviet soldiers-liberators who crossed the Kishezers Lakes in the autumn of 1944. For any information about the persons who committed this, a local resident announced a reward of 1,000 euro.

And that leaves only one other conceivable outcome: a fragmented and partly dismembered Ukraine, neither fully part of the West nor entirely within the Russian sphere of influence. A Ukraine fragmented in that the whole of the Donbas and perhaps other territories will be left beyond Kyiv’s control; partly dismembered in that Crimea will remain part of Russia (at least in Russian eyes); and not fully part of the West in that it will not be free to join NATO or even to have a meaningful partnership with the EU. Simply put, this outcome is not only not impossible, it’s not even improbable.

And when this final scenario comes to pass, who will have won the war in Ukraine? https://thehill.com/opinion/international/3509458-the-unpalatable-truth-in-ukraine/

Don’t poke the bear. This idiom summed up an American strategy that argued, essentially, that the West should avoid antagonizing Russia, lest it enrage the beast. After the invasion of Ukraine, the approach fell out of favor. But as Ukraine has pushed Russian forces back from Kyiv, the school has witnessed an unexpected resurgence. A chorus of former officials, academics and journalists are suddenly arguing that it would be prudent for Ukraine to settle, when recently many in this same camp were calling for exactly the opposite. https://thehill.com/opinion/international/3510730-the-sudden-return-of-dont-poke-the-bear/

Even the champions of fake news are trolling Biden. 😜

Simply beautiful!‼️💤

Russian Ka-52 working💤 at the battlefield. A flight like any other. 🚀🚁

So many people are unwittingly allowing themselves to be used as pawns in a game they do not understand or are even aware of. However, with every increasingly desperate move the dark side reveals its true intentions for humanity. Refuse to play the game and it's over!

It's easy said then done!

Reported by the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation

On June 4, during the retreat from the city of Svyatogorsk of the Donetsk People's Republic of the units of the 79th Airborne Assault Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Ukrainian nationalists set fire to the wooden monastery of All Saints of the Land of the Russian Holy Dormition Svyatogorsk Lavra.

According to information from local residents, a burst of incendiary ammunition from a large-caliber machine gun mounted on a Ukrainian Kozak armored car was fired at the wooden walls of the domed space of the structure.

After the arson, the Ukrainian nationalists left at high speed in a southerly direction, towards the settlement of Sidorovo controlled by Ukrainian troops.

The units of the Russian Armed Forces located to the north of Svyatogorsk are not conducting combat operations in this area and are not shelling the territory of the Svyatogorsk Historical and Architectural Reserve.

NATO support is unlikely to prevent a Russian victory... A successful NATO intervention in Ukraine is a military impossibility. War would result in catastrophic damage to NATO infrastructure across Europe and the deaths of thousands of allied soldiers. Washington would quickly be faced with the temptation to use nuclear weapons to restore the situation in its favor.

Although this reading of the military situation may seem apocalyptic, it is supported by the facts on the ground. The balance of forces in Eastern Europe overwhelmingly favors the Kremlin, despite months of fighting in Ukraine. https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2022/06/how_would_nato_fare_on_the_battlefield_with_russia.html

General Stephen M. Twitty, Former Deputy Commander of United States European Command (2018–2020) (part 1): I think the war in the Donbas is starting to turn to the Russians’ favor, and when you take a look at—and I’m particularly talking about the eastern part of the Donbas—the Russians have transitioned from trying to pour all their combat power into the Donbas to obliterating every single town. Whether it be Rubizhne, Lyman, they’re working now on Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk as well, they’re obliterating these particular towns, and that’s how they’re making their headway. They’re not putting a bunch of combat power with infantry forces and tanks in there. They’ve taken all their artillery and they’re treating it like Mariupol and that’s how they’re making their headway. So they’re starting to make some headway in the eastern Donbas and so we have to watch that one closely... Secretary Austin came out that we’re going to weaken Russia. We have not really defined what weaken means, because if you take a look at the Ukrainians right now, I take a strong belief in Colin Powell’s doctrine—you overwhelm a particular enemy with force. And right now, when you take a look at Ukraine and you take a look at Russia, they’re about one to one. The only difference is Russia has a heck of a lot of combat power than the Ukrainians.

And so there’s no way that the Ukrainians will ever destroy or defeat the Russians, and so we got to really figure out what does weaken mean in the end state here. And I will also tell you... there’s no way that the Ukrainians will ever have enough combat power to kick the Russians out of Ukraine as well, and so what does that look like in the end game... https://www.cfr.org/event/russias-war-ukraine-how-does-it-end

General Stephen M. Twitty, Former Deputy Commander of United States European Command (2018–2020) (part 2): I learned from the National War College there’s something called ends, ways, and means.

So if that’s your end state—pre-2014—then I’m interested to hear the ways and the means because, from a military standpoint, if that’s the way then the means would be the Ukrainians lack, again, the ability to pull that off to pre-2014. They just lack that ability. They don’t have the combat power.

And I also want to remind you we hear a lot about Russian casualties and Russian losses. We hear very little about Ukrainian losses, and keep in mind they’re losing soldiers throughout this war as well. They started at approximately two hundred thousand. Who knows where they are today?

And so it’s hard to recruit and maintain that level of professionalism in that military. So that’s my first point. The end, ways, and means, they lack that, to be able to go back to the pre-2014.

The second point that I would make is, you know, as you look at the DIME—diplomatic, informational, military, and economic—we’re woefully lacking on the diplomatic piece of this. If you notice, there’s no diplomacy going on at all to trying to get to some type of negotiations. And I don’t think that we can lead that, given where Putin thinks about us.

But if you sit back and think about those that could possibly be a part of this negotiation team, you know, you have the—two of them are in—that I’m going to list are in NATO. One is President Orbán out of Hungary. Perhaps he can help out in the negotiation effort. The other one is President Erdoğan of Turkey. Longtime friends of President Putin, although some view that relationship as transactional. I don’t know. Let’s put it to the test and see.

Don’t forget about China as well. You know, we have a tendency not to put China in this because we view them as a(n) adversary. But President Jinping has a relationship, obviously, and then don’t forget about India with President Kovind as well. And so I think we need to put more pressure on the diplomatic end of this and see if we can come to some type of resolution diplomatically.

And then the last thing I would say... We cannot call the terms on the end game here because here’s something we haven’t seen yet and it’s coming, believe me, as an—an insurgency that is going to brew out of this fight. And regardless of whether we bring the Russians and the Ukrainians to the table at this point—let’s just say tomorrow—you have a lot of angry Ukrainians out there.

They lost their homes. They lost their families. They’ve lost everything. And so there’s going to be insurgency that comes out of this thing whether a settlement happens or not that will keep this war going for some time, in my view. That’s all I have there. https://www.cfr.org/event/russias-war-ukraine-how-does-it-end

Following our subscriber's research, here is a link to Stephen Kotkin interview with Peter Robinson at "Uncommon Knowledge". Stephen Kotkin is a professor of history at Princeton and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. It was recorded a while ago, on January 14, 2022, so is not covering the recent development. However, it shows some of the ideas in the developing. I, personally, liked most the passage from Peter Robinson: "Putin is not a communist. He's a Russian, he stands in a tradition of 1,000 years of trying to assert dominance over that huge Eurasian mass. So why don't we let him have it? What is our interest in the Donbas region of Ukraine? Why should we even have been concerned when he recaptured, annexed, I think is the technical term, when he annexed Crimea, Sevastopol, the Russian port on the Black Sea was, I looked it up the other day, it was established in 1783 by Catherine The Great, it's a Russian holding. Let him expand because that's all he's interested in. He just wants to be Russian and we can live with that." https://www.hoover.org/research/5-questions-stephen-kotkin-1