This is classic cart before horse stuff and emblematic of Western decisionmaking throughout the Ukrainian War - how about get into a position where the resumption of the infamous Grain Deal(tm) is a realistic possibility first and then go talk to Lloyd's about insurance instead of wasting everybody's time planning the details of a scenario that will never happen. Because right now the only grain leaving the Black Sea is Russian.

According to Julian's employers, people living in the LDPR and even the Crimea are Ukrainians. So he's even wrong on his own terms.

Austria will not extradite Ukrainian men of military age if Ukraine makes such a request , the country's Interior Ministry told Exxpress.

"It would be a massive encroachment on our statehood, we would never have done this," the ministry said.

According to the publication, there are 14,000 Ukrainians of military age in Austria.

DeepStateUA's geolocation project - which did indeed show Ukrainian forces is mainly still stuck at Robotyne and some distance to the east of Novoprokopivka.

Of course, its unknown when was the latest update for the above (nor the range of date). But it does show that DeepState's mapping is highly accurate - and that DPA's mapping as a result is also largely accurate

The car tires help camouflage aircraft from satellites filming in the radar range.

Rather significant that the Russians can just hold a patriotic concert with a number of popular entertainers in the Donbass with no fear of Ukrainian attacks. Smacks of their telling Crimea-bound tourists to just use the MSRs in Zaporozhe over the summer when the bridge was out of service.

And yes, the SBU is exactly petty enough to want to murder Alexander Buinov.

Progress is progress!

We are now on the third year of the Russians all dying from hypothermia in the winter and I, for one, feel like I am slowly going insane.

Nebenzya at the UN Security Council - about “mobilization” in Ukraine:

Most Ukrainians understand perfectly well that the threat to them comes not from Russia’s actions, but from the criminal policies of the Zelensky regime. Now, in particular, this is a general mobilization, which has long been called “mobilization” in Ukraine.

The fact is that NATO, as you know, is waging a hybrid war in Ukraine with Russia to the last Ukrainian. And the Ukrainians, after the failed counter-offensive, are already starting to run out and don’t want to end up in a meat grinder. Therefore, military commissars are trying to catch anyone on the street.

Information has emerged that the European Union is ready to hand over men of military age to Kyiv, once again disregarding its principles and values. Ukrainian men quickly realized this and a campaign to move refugees to Russia, where several million Ukrainians have already found shelter, is gaining momentum on social networks.

Video — @dimsmirnov175

#source:
https://t.me/ukraina_ru/168261

@Slavyangrad

Home by Christmas? Maybe. :D

Now that the Ukrainian Zaporozhe Offensive seems to be firmly culminated, let's discuss why the battle happened the way it did. The Stavka identified the land corridor to Crimea as key terrain before the war - the Russians likely launched a large operation in Ukraine rather than a more limited intervention in the Donbass due to the overriding need to secure the Zaporozhe Corridor and prevent Ukrainian forces occupying the Azov coast from trying to lever them out of Crimea using exactly the kind of interdiction tactics and long-range strikes on infrastructure and military facilities now being advocated for so strongly by NATO. The Russians, the Ukrainians, and NATO all know that the road to Ukrainian victory leads through Mariupol.

The Russian withdrawals from Kharkov and right-bank Kherson last year - and make no mistake, they were deliberate withdrawals - were conducted in order to ensure that corridor could be defended as strongly as possible for the battle to come. Their chaotic aftermath (and the operational sideshow in Bakhmut) also provided a priceless opportunity to entrench in relative calm over a period of months. This is a basic military principle from Clausewitz - be as strong as possible on the decisive point. Holding Kherson City and Izyum - or even Nikolaev and Kramatorsk - would be profoundly irrelevant if the Ukrainians had been allowed to cut the Zaporozhe Corridor. Absent enough troops to overrun eastern Ukraine in 2022 and foreclose a Ukrainian counteroffensive, retrenchment was ultimately the correct decision - and has largely been proven as such - regardless of any short term damage to Russian prestige.

When this battle is over, the Russians will have the means with which to win the war.