• Civ7 is already available! Happy playing :).

[RD] Russia Invades Ukraine: Eight

You want to try to support a claim that a military which achieved this has problems "in the realm of military culture and organization"? Lack of ability? Compared to whom?

The UAF has many of the same problems, being descended from the same Soviet military establishment. And I have been saying for years that Russia can win in spite of these issues. Another point is that of course the Russian performance, tactically and operationally, has improved significantly since the beginning of the war.

I will note that I have always expressed skepticism of Western wunderwaffe. Some NATO equipment is qualitatively superior to its Russian equivalents, but this means very little if the NATO equipment is deployed in dribs and drabs, cannot be produced in volume or sustained in the field for any real length of time, another problem I've discussed in these threads plenty of times.

*Trump also is intoxicated, he thinks he can pressure the russian government to agree to a status quo peace because Russia is supposed to be in a weak position. He's believeing at least half of NATO's own propaganda. Not going to go well. But most EU politicians are even more detached from reality.

On the contrary, my position is that absent some big change(s) to the situation that we cannot really foresee at present, Russia will surely win - the only question is how long it takes and at what cost. Russia indeed has no reason to negotiate at present.

The problems for the Russian armed forces you (we all) have picked up on were unexpected.

Not entirely unexpected - as I said, many of these are familar problems. I think many did not quite realize how deep the rot was in the Russian armed forces, and this includes Putin, but equally the Russians have manifestly taken measures to improve the situation. The Russians' tactical performance has indeed improved in various ways over the last three years. I think a genuinely unexpected factor was the skill and resolve of the Ukrainian defense.
 
Clarification on foreign aid pause: Doesn't apply to Israel of course, but applies to Ukraine.

State Department issues immediate, widespread pause on foreign aid​

Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Friday issued new guidance halting spending on most existing foreign aid grants for 90 days. The order, which shocked State Department officials, appears to apply to funding for military assistance to Ukraine. Rubio’s guidance, issued to all diplomatic and consular posts, requires department staffers to issue “stop-work orders” on nearly all “existing foreign assistance awards,” according to the document, which was obtained by POLITICO. It is effective immediately.

It appears to go further than President Donald Trump’s recent executive order, which instructed the department to pause foreign aid grants for 90 days pending review by the secretary. It had not been clear from the president’s order if it would affect already appropriated funds or Ukraine aid. The new guidance means no further actions will be taken to disperse aid funding to programs already approved by the U.S. government, according to three current and two former officials familiar with the new guidance. The order shocked some department officials for its sweeping mandate. “State just totally went nuclear on foreign assistance,” said another State Department official.

Putin says he’s ready to meet Trump to ‘talk calmly’​

“It would be better for us to meet, based on the realities of today, to talk calmly on all those areas that are of interest to both the United States and Russia,” Putin said during an interview on domestic TV channel Russia 24. “We are ready. But, I repeat, this primarily, of course, depends on the decisions and choices of the current American administration,” he added.
https://www.politico.eu/article/vla...p-united-states-energy-prices-war-in-ukraine/
 
The UAF has many of the same problems, being descended from the same Soviet military establishment. And I have been saying for years that Russia can win in spite of these issues. Another point is that of course the Russian performance, tactically and operationally, has improved significantly since the beginning of the war.

I will note that I have always expressed skepticism of Western wunderwaffe. Some NATO equipment is qualitatively superior to its Russian equivalents, but this means very little if the NATO equipment is deployed in dribs and drabs, cannot be produced in volume or sustained in the field for any real length of time, another problem I've discussed in these threads plenty of times.



On the contrary, my position is that absent some big change(s) to the situation that we cannot really foresee at present, Russia will surely win - the only question is how long it takes and at what cost. Russia indeed has no reason to negotiate at present.



Not entirely unexpected - as I said, many of these are familar problems. I think many did not quite realize how deep the rot was in the Russian armed forces, and this includes Putin, but equally the Russians have manifestly taken measures to improve the situation. The Russians' tactical performance has indeed improved in various ways over the last three years. I think a genuinely unexpected factor was the skill and resolve of the Ukrainian defense.

Western weapons are not wanderwaffe even in WW2. Nazi Fernany and USSR/Russua pushed that.

Western wanderwaffe is more or less good stuff that actually works. Eg super carriers, F16s, electronics in general.

NATO level tech with air power will steamroll pretty much everyone else on a conventional battle.

No one's really countered the USAF ever although North Vietnam put in a good effort until USA adapted. Then micro chips happened.

You still need training, Moral, and motivation to use the weapons. Authoritarian regimes will ways struggle with Nazi Germzny being an exception. They don't delegate control well.
 
The UAF has many of the same problems, being descended from the same Soviet military establishment. And I have been saying for years that Russia can win in spite of these issues. Another point is that of course the Russian performance, tactically and operationally, has improved significantly since the beginning of the war.

The UAF, had the ukranian government quit the war before military defeat, would actually have been scary in the european context. Much scarier than any national army of NATO members in Europe. Which was another of the reasons why they were not wanted in the alliance by the big european members.
Their most disastrous moves seem to have been executed at the urging of NATO, eh, "strategists". The 2003 offensive, recall how it was depicted in the propaganda we were served at the time? NATO training, NATO material, NATO ISR, NATO everything. Totally boung to roud the ragtag russian amy, sure thing!
Then, total failure, taken from the propaganda newsreels, do not talk about it anymore.
 
Moderator Action: Opinions of opinions are not news. News please.
 

Russians Enter Last Major Ukrainian Stronghold In Key Eastern Sector​

Russian forces have entered the Donetsk Oblast town of Velyka Novosilka, according to Russian and Ukrainian sources. The settlement is Ukraine’s last major stronghold in the southern Donbas region. Located at the intersection of Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, and Dnipropetrovsk Oblasts, its capture could provide Russian forces with a potential route for advancement into Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, Ukrainian military analysts say, according to Euromaidan Press.

“Military personnel of the ‘Vostok’ group continue to hack into the defense of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in Velyka Novosilka,” the Russian MoD claimed on Telegram. “Servicemen from the ‘East’ military group installed the Russian flag on one of the buildings recaptured from the enemy in the center of the settlement.”
 
recaptured ? when did they lost it ?
 
Another strategic town, the second one in 2025 after Kurakhovo. Toretsk is likely to be next.

Amid talk of a ceasefire, Ukraine’s front line is crumbling​

An ominous defeat in the eastern town of Velyka Novosilka
The final battle for the small Donbas town of Velyka Novosilka dragged on for six days, though the outcome was obvious long before. Things became critical early in the new year, when Russian troops took over villages immediately to its north-east and west, pinching the Ukrainian defenders on three sides. By Thursday 23rd, the narrow corridor to what had become a nearly-isolated pocket had become impassable. The order to retreat came as soon as a mist descended. It was a nightmareish task that had to be completed on foot, under drone-filled skies, and across a river. The evidence of triumphant Russian propaganda channels suggests that many failed to make it.
recaptured ? when did they lost it ?
Lost in translation.
 

In a split second, Russia wipes out three generations of a Ukrainian family​

Teddy bears – large and small - are clustered around the grave of Adam Buhayov as if keeping him company.

But the 17-month-old is not alone. His mother Sophiia Buhayova, 27, is buried in the grave with him, in a bleak and windswept cemetery in Ukraine's southern city of Zaporizhzhia.

Adam's great-grandmother, Tetiana Tarasevych, 68, is in the grave right beside them.

All three were killed together on 7 November last year by a Russian attack in a war that has devoured Ukraine since 2022 – but which no longer dominates the international agenda.

Some of Adam's last moments were captured by Tetiana in a video on her phone. The two of them were out on a walk with Adam's mum Sophiia. Blond-haired, blue-eyed Adam wears a red anorak and a woollen hat, with a Mickey Mouse sticker on the front. "Don't take off your hat," Tetiana tells him gently, "you will be cold". He does it anyway.

One hour later the trio were at home, about to get a bite to eat, when a Russian guided aerial bomb sliced through their block of flats. Adam, Sophiia and Tetiana were killed, along with six other civilians.

Sophiia's mother Yuliia Tarasevych, 46, now struggles to carry on - without most of her family, without her past and her future.

She is slight, and swamped by a heavy black coat and by grief.

"I don't know how to live," she says. "It's hell on earth. I lost my mother, my daughter, and my grandson in one second." The closest she can get to them now is at their graves.

"My dear Mum," she says weeping, and stroking a photograph of Tetiana – a doctor like her - attached to a wooden cross. One step brings her to the grave of Sophiia and Adam. She leans down to touch his photo, calling him "my little kitten".

Then she speaks directly to a photo of Sophiia - a black and white image of a young woman with long dark hair. "My beautiful daughter," she cries, "I am sorry I could not save you."

Sophiia's father, 60-year-old Serhiy Lushchay, is by her side - a robust figure who shares her loss and her sorrow. "We visit the graveyard often," Yuliia says, "and we will as long as we live, because it truly makes it a little easy for us".

Every time they come, there are more graves stretching out into the distance. The cemetery is expanding "at a staggering pace," Yuliia says. Rows of blue and yellow flags, marking the graves of fallen soldiers, pierce the sombre grey sky.

Zaporizhzhia, where the family lived, is a regular target for Russian forces. It is a strategically important industrial city, near front-line fighting. Europe's largest nuclear power plant – about 55km (34 miles) from the city – is held by the Russians.

On the day of the attack that killed Sophiia, Tetiana and Adam, Yuliia called her daughter from western Ukraine, where she was on a work trip.

"I told her to be careful. Bombs had been falling over the city since the morning. She said: 'Thank you mum, don't worry. Everything will be fine with us.'"

Serhiy was at work when he heard something had happened. He too called his daughter, but there was no reply.

Then, on his local residents' WhatsApp group he saw a message saying: "Friends, who else is still left under the rubble?"

"I rushed home praying all the way," he says, "but my prayers were already in vain".

"When I arrived, all I saw was ruins. I wandered around looking for my balcony. I don't know how much time passed – two or three hours – and I realised there was nothing left, and no hope of rescue."

In the days that followed some belongings were reclaimed from the rubble - a china cup of Sophiia's, somehow unbroken, a toy fish Adam played with in the bath, and the little red jacket he wore on his last walk. These are now family treasures, along with many precious memories.

"Every evening when I came home from work, I would take Adam for a walk," says Serhiy. "He was very curious about the sky. He'd point his little finger up, and we'd tell him about it. And he loved birds."

Another family video shows Adam hoisted in Sophiia's arms, being swung from side to side, and then running around on the ground, surrounded by pigeons. "He had almost started talking," Yuliia says, "and he was always smiling. He was healthy, beautiful and smart. He and my daughter made us happy every day".

After Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Yuliia had taken Sophiia to safety in the UK.

The young woman put her language skills to use, working as a translator for Ukrainian troops being trained by the British military, but she could not stay away from Ukraine.

"She really missed her parents and her relatives and the country," Yuliia says. Sophiia returned and later gave birth to Adam in June 2023. She also took up psychology because "she knew a lot of people in Ukraine needed psychological help," her mother says.

In the midst of her grief, Yuliia knows that Ukraine may soon come under pressure to negotiate with the enemy that robbed her of so much.

President Trump is back into the White House – all guns blazing - pushing for peace talks between Moscow and Kyiv. But both Yuliia and Serhiy are adamant that Ukraine must fight on. She tells me Donald Trump's claim that he could end the war in a day was "funny to hear".

"Russia is an aggressor, that came to our country, and destroyed our homes, and our families," Yuliia says. "So, there can be no talk of any ceasefire or peace talks. If we leave this glutton [Russian President Vladimir Putin] with our territories and do not avenge the people we lost, we will never win."

Serhiy says the only contact with Russians on Ukrainian territory should be through combat.

Many Ukrainians believe that even if there is a ceasefire, Russia will come back for more sooner or later – as it did in 2022, eight years after annexing the Crimean Peninsula. Moscow now controls almost one fifth of Ukraine.

Time is not on Ukraine's side. In 2025 there is danger on several fronts - a lack of manpower, a possible reduction in future US military aid, and fading international attention.

Yuliia accepts that life goes on in other countries.

"People can't live in constant stress, thinking only about us," she says.

"Still, I would like them to remember that there's a war happening nearby, where not only soldiers but also civilians are dying."

She wants the the world to know the names – Adam Buhayov, Sophiia Buhayova, and Tetiana Tarasevych.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwyp8nkgxj3o
 

Ukrainian Drones Flew 500 Miles And, In A Single Strike, Damaged 5% Of Russia’s Oil Refining Capacity​

Late Tuesday night or early Wednesday morning, Ukrainian drones struck the Nizhny Novgorod oil refinery in Kstovo, in central Russia 520 miles from the front line in northern Ukraine. The blasts triggered what the Ukrainian general staff in Kyiv described as a “powerful” fire that burned through the early morning.

“The results and extent of the damage are being clarified,” the general staff reported. But Russian bloggers are already panicking over this and other recent Ukrainian strikes on Russia’s roughly 30 large refineries, critical chokepoints in the country’s most important industry. “Yet another refinery in flames,” one blogger wrote after decrying the apparent absence of air defenses around the strategic sites.

Ukraine’s campaign of deep strikes targeting Russian oil facilities has been going on for around two years, but this month’s raids marked a significant escalation. The Kstovo plant alone refined 13,000,000 million barrels of oil a year, roughly 5% of Russia’s total refinery output. Strikes on several other refineries this month may have depressed Russian petroleum product production by more than a tenth.

Refineries can be repaired. But Ukraine can always send more drones. In three years of relentless work, Ukrainian industry has developed more than a dozen different models of long-range strike drone, including modified sport planes that routinely haul hundreds of pounds of explosives as far as 800 miles and strike with pinpoint accuracy. Other drone models can travel more than 1,000 miles.

Compared to the presumably multimillion-dollar cost of rebuilding a refinery, a drone—even a swarm of drones—is cheap. The Aeroprakt A-22 sport planes the Ukrainians transform into attack drones sell for around $130,000.

The oil raids are part of a wider Ukrainian strategy aimed at depriving Russia of its main source of state revenue—and strangling the Russian war effort by choking off its funding.

The Americans are in on it—for now. Fresh U.S. sanctions on tankers hauling Russian oil, put into place by the administration of former Pres. Joe Biden in its last two weeks in power, have begun to scare off Chinese and Indian buyers.

Whether Pres. Donald Trump sustains the sanctions, lifts them or double downs, remains to be seen. Trump’s first days in office have been unusually chaotic—and haven’t projected a clear vision for America’s new role in the Russia-Ukraine war. Trump once pledged to end the war on his first day in office on Jan. 20, a promise he obviously failed to keep.

It’s worth noting that Keith Kellogg, a retired U.S. Army lieutenant general and Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, has long argued for stricter sanctions on what he characterized as Russia’s “weaponized” energy industry. There’s no guarantee Kellogg’s prescription becomes policy, however.

The Ukrainians are determined to continue blowing up Russian oil, regardless of whether the Americans continue to assist with the wider counter-energy campaign. “Combat work on strategic facilities involved in providing support for the Russian armed aggression against Ukraine will continue,” the Ukrainian general staff stated.
 
Ukraine keeps winning.

Why Putin is feeling more confident​

Russian troops are advancing faster than they did in 2022. Last year, they captured more than 1,600 square miles in the Donetsk region, including four towns – Avdiivka, Selydove, Vuhledar and Kurakhove. This month, 20 Ukrainian settlements have fallen, with Russian forces now just three miles from entering the Dnipropetrovsk region. Ukraine’s defence continues to crumble amid a critical infantry shortage and chaotic coordination between units. Some 250,000 Ukrainian soldiers are facing almost twice as many Russians on the front line, and the gap is widening. Talks of Trump’s potential peace deal have further eroded morale, triggering a fresh wave of desertions both on the frontline and at training centres, as soldiers do not want to die just before a ceasefire is reached. More than six million men have not updated their military data to avoid conscription.

 

Ukrainians in Kherson survived Russia's occupation. Now, they're being hunted by drones​

Local officials say nearly 70 killed, more than 700 injured in drone attacks since summer

When Dmytro stepped out into the morning sun last October after paying to fill up his car at a gas station in Ukraine's southern Kherson region, the 46-year-old immediately heard the unmistakable buzz of a drone overheard.

And then he felt the force of a powerful explosion.

"It happened so fast," said Dmytro, who asked CBC News to not publish his last name for security reasons. "There were a lot of flames. I was bleeding right away."

He was thrown back into the store, hitting a fridge full of drinks. His eyes stung and pain radiated through his right shoulder.

After stumbling to his feet, Dmytro managed to make it to his car and drove himself to a hospital, where he needed surgery to remove shrapnel that had been created by the explosive dropped by a Russian drone.

Since the summer, the number of drone attacks on people in Kherson has increased dramatically, killing nearly 70 and injuring more than 700, according to local officials.

The attacks, which some have dubbed a "human safari," have forced many to flee the areas closest to the Dnipro River, while trapping others indoors because of a fear of stepping outside.

Authorities in Kherson believe Russian soldiers are deliberately targeting and terrorizing civilians in an attempt to get them to leave the area. Human rights investigators say the Russian military's tactics are a clear violation of international law, and a very worrying example of the terror that can be created by inexpensive drones fitted with explosives.

Frequent attacks​

Kherson, which had a pre-war population of around 300,000, was the first major Ukrainian city captured by Russian forces at the outset of the full-scale invasion in 2022.

Russia considers the entire region its territory. Kherson is one of four areas that Moscow claimed during what observers describe as sham referendums held in September 2022.

Over the course of nearly three years, Kherson has been occupied, liberated and is now being bombarded by the Russian military. Less than a quarter of its original residents remain.

The most dangerous areas include the suburb of Antonivka, and to the west of that, Kherson's Dniprovskyi district. Both neighbourhoods sit along the Dnipro River, which now acts as a dividing line between Ukrainian and Russian positions.

In those areas and others, drones have stalked people on bicycles and chased pedestrians before dropping explosives on many of them. In some cases, they hit their apparent targets; other times, there are near-misses.

Vehicles have come under frequent attack, including ambulances and city buses. A strike on a bus on Jan. 6 killed two people and injured several others. According to local officials, the dead included a local ecologist and a city employee.

"It is absolutely clear that what we are talking about is an abusive campaign that is targeting civilians," said Belkis Wille, an associate director in the crisis, conflict and arms division at Human Rights Watch, in an interview with CBC News.

"
[The people] are really living in a horrifying reality."

'Clear violation' of humanitarian law​

Belkis, whose team has been investigating the drone attacks, visited Kherson in November and spoke with dozens of residents. Human Rights Watch has been cataloguing videos taken from the cameras of the drones and posted by pro-Russian accounts on the social media platform Telegram.

The videos often include music and captions with ominous warnings.

In a video posted Jan. 18, a drone hovers above a man who appears to be trying to seek cover next to a building. He looks up and makes the sign of a cross several times, before the drone appears to turn to fly off and the video ends.

The pro-Russian accounts warn that any "civilian infrastructure" or vehicles moving in what they label Kherson's "red zone" — the southern part of the city, along with the suburb of Antonivka — will be "considered as legitimate targets."

"You can't just decide that the entire segment of a city with civilians in it is an area in which you can target anything that moves," said Wille. "That is a clear violation of international humanitarian law."

The Telegram accounts claim that Ukraine's military is trying to operate while blending in with residents. The posts accuse city buses of carrying ammunition and Ukrainian soldiers of driving out in civilian cars. CBC was unable to verify the videos or who exactly was in them.

Throughout the war, Russian officials have said that their military does not target civilians. Ukrainian authorities and victims vehemently dispute this.

"It's a lie," Dmytro told CBC News on Jan. 28, while inside a shelter in the Kherson region. "They shoot where there's no military. And they bomb people. That's how I understand it."

Dmytro, who says he used to work in security, now struggles to walk. He has a heavy limp and a cane. He says he suffered from nerve damage to his legs long before the drone attack.

He said he heard of an elderly woman on a bicycle who was chased by a drone, and a man killed while walking his dog.

A desire to leave​

Investigators with the Centre for Information Resilience (CIR), a London-based non-profit, have also been studying footage of the drone attacks. They produced a report saying it is a "realistic possibility" Russian soldiers are using the drone attacks as a live-fire training exercise.

Between July and Jan. 26, CIR found evidence of nearly 130 attacks that appeared to involve civilians. The centre concluded that while the Ukrainian military operates in these areas, some civilians remain and that they and their vehicles are being targeted.

In the last week of January, local officials reported several drone attacks. A 44-year-old man on a tractor was killed, as was a 45-year-old man on a bike.

Residents say when the sun is shining and there is clear visibility, there are sure to be drones in the air. Heavy rain and fog usually means a brief reprieve.

Some people try to avoid being in cars, because the engines drown out the warning buzz of a drone above.

Dmytro said that before he was injured by the drone, he would frequently look up at the skies. After the attack, volunteers helped him, his wife and their five children leave the village. The family now shares two rooms in a temporary housing complex further north.

The risk of shelling, along with the constant threat of drones, has led to an increase of people — particularly those living along the Dnipro River — wanting to leave Kherson.

More and more are being evacuated because of the threat to their lives, said Olha Tykhomyrova, the head of social work for the Chornobaivka district, which is part of the Kherson military administration.

But she says a lot of them have mobility issues and have had difficulty leaving.

'Everything is destroyed'​

While speaking to Dmytro at the shelter, CBC News met 75-year-old Lubov Tymofeeva, who arrived after being evacuated from Antonivka.

She walked with a cane, and became overwhelmed when asked about what she has been through. While in her home, Tymofeeva had no phone or heat, and no way to escape.

"It is horrible there. It is hell," she cried, holding her head in her hands. "Everything is destroyed."

Tymofeeva, who lived alone and has no family in Ukraine, says she spent the last three months sleeping under a pile of blankets with no gas or electricity, listening to the drones and the shelling. When she ran out of food, she started warming up water by the light of a candle and adding milk given to her by a group that had dropped off aid.

She wanted to leave but had no working car, so she walked for a few hours to a hospital, where humanitarian workers drove her to the shelter.

"I was hoping maybe soon the war will end," she said. "But it is bloody not ending."

Wille says Russia's targeting of civilians in Kherson is reminiscent of its campaign in Idlib, Syria, in 2018, when its airforce was striking civilian infrastructure like schools as part of its defence of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad's regime.

Not only is Russia using drones to drop explosives in Kherson, but Wille says they have also been used to scatter landmines.

She says drones have made it possible to target civilians in a deliberate yet inexpensive manner.

"We fear that these kinds of tactics that we're only seeing in Kherson right now … are going to be tactics that you might see used by abusive forces around the world in the future."
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/ukraine-kherson-attack-drones-1.7443615
 

Ukraine's crimes against Kursk civilians must be made public — human rights commissioner​

While liberating the settlement of Russkoye Porechnoye, Sudzansky district, Russian troops found the bodies of slain and tortured civilians in the cellars, acting region's governor Alexander Khinshtein earlier said

Information about the Ukrainian troops' killing of civilians in Kursk Region should be made public so that international bodies can hold accountable the perpetrators of these crimes, Russian Human Rights Commissioner Tatiana Moskalkova stated.

"We can prove that killed civilians were found in premises located in the liberated territory, their hands tied, and their bodies bearing signs of violent death. They were shot dead - this fact must be made public in the widest possible manner so that international agencies do their best to expose those responsible for atrocities against humanity," Moskalkova told reporters.

While liberating the settlement of Russkoye Porechnoye, Sudzansky district, Russian troops found the bodies of slain and tortured civilians in the cellars, acting region's governor Alexander Khinshtein earlier said. The majority were elderly people who could not resist armed and trained militants, Khinshtein noted.

The Main Military Investigations Department of the Investigative Committee of Russia has opened a criminal case against Ukraine's militants who committed a terrorist act against civilians in Kursk Region (paragraph (b), part 3 of Article 205 of the Criminal Code).

 
To made them public, they need to invite foreign human right agency back in Russia, or have they already ?
 

The arrival of around 11,000 North Korean troops in Russia in November caused alarm in Ukraine and among its allies in the West, who feared their deployment signaled a significant escalation in the nearly three-year-old war. But in just three months, the North Korean ranks have diminished by half, according to Gen. Oleksandr Syrsky, Ukraine’s top military commander.

Ukrainian troops who have fought against the North Koreans have described them as fierce warriors. But disorganization in their ranks and a lack of cohesion with Russian units have quickly driven up casualties, a Ukrainian official said. Since arriving on the battlefield, the North Korean soldiers have been left to fend for themselves, advancing with few armored vehicles and rarely pausing to regroup or fall back, according to Ukrainian officials and frontline troops.

Many of the soldiers are among North Korea’s best-trained special operations troops, but the Russians appear to have used them as foot soldiers, sending them forth in waves across fields studded with land mines to be mowed down by heavy Ukrainian fire.

The American officials said the decision to pull the North Korean troops off the front line may not be a permanent one. It is possible, they said, that the North Koreans could return after receiving additional training or after the Russians come up with new ways of deploying them to avoid such heavy casualties.
 
the US seem not afraid of oil's raising cost anymore, and now Ukraine is finally targeting Russia's main source of income.



Oil flows through Russia’s Baltic Sea port of Ust-Luga appeared to pause, backing up Kyiv’s claims of a successful drone strike on a pumping station.

It would present a significant new supply threat for the global oil market if it were to be confirmed that Ukrainian drone strikes have damaged the pipeline system feeding Ust-Luga, halting oil shipments from the port for a prolonged period.
 

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