Venäjän hyökkäys Ukrainaan 2022

[Kalu]

Joku aika sitten oli videokuvaa kun venäläinen sotilas antautui dronelle, tyypin haastattelu: https://www.wsj.com/articles/russia-sol ... e-3860ab6a

Saisko quotea!

[38911 BASIC BYTES FREE]

Joku aika sitten oli videokuvaa kun venäläinen sotilas antautui dronelle, tyypin haastattelu: https://www.wsj.com/articles/russia-sol ... e-3860ab6a

vain tilaajille

[Tavallinen apostoli]

Joku aika sitten oli videokuvaa kun venäläinen sotilas antautui dronelle, tyypin haastattelu: https://www.wsj.com/articles/russia-sol ... e-3860ab6a

Saisko quotea!

Jo vain, alkup. jutussa aika paljon kuvaa ja videota mutta tekstit järjestyy. Osa 1:

Spoiler:

KUPYANSK, Ukraine—Russian draftee Ruslan Anitin was being hunted by Ukrainian drones dropping small bombs. For hours, he scurried up and down a narrow trench.

As the sun began to set on May 9, he gazed up at a small machine buzzing overhead. Parched, exhausted and alone, Anitin crossed his arms above his head and clasped his hands together, pleading into the drone’s camera to stop the bombardment.

His face was beamed onto a screen at a command post of Ukraine’s 92nd Mechanized Brigade a few miles away, near the eastern city of Bakhmut. Col. Pavlo Fedosenko conferred with other officers, then sent an order over the radio to the drone pilots.

Try to take him alive.

If Anitin’s experience is any indication, Russian morale appeared to be fraying even before the recent Ukrainian counteroffensive began. A Ukrainian hotline for Russians who want to surrender has received more than 17,000 inquiries since September, Ukrainian officials said. Social-media posts show draftees pleading for more equipment and their wives back home complaining that they are ill-equipped and under heavy bombardment at the front despite being promised jobs in the rear.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday that Moscow had been able to fight off Ukraine’s counteroffensive so far but acknowledged losing a significant number of tanks.

Anitin is one of the few Russian soldiers to try to surrender to a drone. Drone footage reviewed by The Wall Street Journal captured in its entirety the frantic efforts of a man trying to survive bombardment in the trenches.

Anitin, 30 years old, a slight man with a receding hairline, studied to be a veterinarian and never expected to end up in the middle of a war. When Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24 of last year, he was a marshal at Penal Colony No. 3, a prison near his hometown of Idritsa. His social-media posts at the time, including images of the Russian flag and comments such as “Let’s punish the fascists,” suggested he supported the war.

A tattoo on his hand reading “Za-VDV,” or “For the Airborne Forces,” was a memento from the year of mandatory military service he completed nearly a decade ago, he said in a recent interview. He said he assumed only the professional army would be fighting in Ukraine. “It felt like it was never going to involve us at all,” he said.

That changed in September, when Russia mobilized civilians into the army after a string of battlefield losses. By then, Anitin was managing a liquor store in Idritsa, a town of 5,000 near the Latvian border. His income and his wife’s provided a comfortable middle-class lifestyle.

After his shift ended one Sunday, he said he received a call to report to his local draft office. Officials there told him they were going through names alphabetically. One told him to go home to pack and show up the next morning or face jail time for evasion.

Anitin left home before dawn the next day. His wife sobbed when he told her he had been drafted, so he said his goodbyes the night before and didn’t wake her or their 3-year-old daughter before he left. “I didn’t see the point,” he said.

He and three other villagers were bussed to a larger town. So many men were being mobilized that officials skipped medical checks. They were given uniforms and Soviet-era rifles. In weeks of training they got only two chances to fire the weapons, Anitin said.

Commanders told the men they would stay in Russia to fortify the border. Within a month, Anitin was shipped into Ukraine. His unit performed guard duties and built fortified positions in Luhansk, an eastern region of Ukraine partially seized by Russia in 2014. For months, he said, they saw no fighting.

That changed in early May. The commander of his platoon said they were moving to Bakhmut to cover for retreating assault teams. Yevgeny Prigozhin, founder of Wagner Group, had just threatened to withdraw his men after they sustained tens of thousands of casualties in their push to capture the city.

“We understood that they wanted to throw us into that meat grinder,” said Anitin.

The next evening, he rode in a military truck to a patch of woodland a few hundred yards from the front line. His commander picked him out along with two other recruits, including Dmitri Ivanov, a 21-year-old restaurant worker whom Anitin had befriended. They were told to advance into the trench system closest to Ukrainian lines, take shelter and sit tight, Anitin said.

The men carried a total of four meals and six bottles of water. Around 1 a.m., a Wagner fighter guided them to the nearest trench, where they immediately came under mortar fire that lasted about 40 minutes. The Wagner fighter warned them: “If you refuse to execute a mission, you get shot. And if you try to retreat, you also get shot.”

During a short pause in the shelling, Anitin and the others ran to the next trench. It was hard to find shelter from the shelling just 200 yards from Ukrainian positions. The men groped around in the darkness, stepping on discarded bags, weapons and, as they discovered once dawn broke, dozens of dead bodies.

“They weren’t fresh. They must have been there for a week or two,” said Anitin.

He and Ivanov eventually discovered burrows in the walls of the trench. They climbed inside for protection.

Small Chinese-made drones driven by four propellers, the kind used for panoramic wedding videos, were a constant menace. They sent live video that corrected targeting for Ukrainian artillery. Some had been modified with claws that dropped explosive rounds, originally made for a rocket-propelled grenade launcher, directly into the trench.

Around 7 a.m., a blast injured Ivanov and wounded Anitin in the head, chest and shoulder. Anitin found a walkie-talkie and radioed commanders for help. No response. They hadn’t been given an evacuation point, either.

A few hours later, he was crouched inside a burrow when Ivanov ran past. An explosion sent shrapnel into Ivanov’s lower back. He shouted to Anitin that he couldn’t feel his legs. Moments later, a third explosion hit him.

“I’m not well, brother,” Anitin recalled him saying.

All this time, the Ukrainians piloting the drones were watching everything the terrified Russians were doing. Anitin moved to another position. Ivanov pulled the pin from a hand grenade and detonated it next to his head. The third man in their group was seriously wounded. He later shot himself with his own rifle, the Ukrainians said.

Anitin was on his own. Drone and mortar attacks continued all afternoon. By around 5 p.m., he had no energy left. “I thought I would end up staying in that trench forever,” he said.

Then he got an idea: Surrender to the drone.

[Tavallinen apostoli]

Osa 2:

Spoiler:

He stood up without his rifle and gestured with his hands to stop attacking. Footage recorded by the drones shows him drawing his finger across his neck and shaking his head—his plea to the Ukrainians not to kill him if he surrendered.

He didn’t have a clear plan, he said, but thought it was worth a shot.

In another set of trenches a few hundred feet away, the Ukrainian drone pilots were suspicious, they later recalled, fearing a trap.

The pilots watched Anitin’s body language and used the drones to respond—up and down for yes, left and right for no. They would flash a light on the drones—once for yes and twice for no—a system that he proposed to them through a series of hand gestures.

Anitin didn’t know whether he would be understood. When the drone started moving away, he said, he was filled with relief and decided to follow it.

Ukrainian drone pilots had been operating in the area since March. The Wagner troops leading the fight, they noticed, moved quickly and hid well. Regular Russian army recruits were slower and moved in groups, making them easier to pick off, the pilots said.

All day, the pilots had been using drones to kill the Russians with small grenades—a few dozen in all.

An assault drone had already set out to kill Anitin, according to its pilot, a 26-year-old Ukrainian who uses the call sign Boxer. After seeing the high-definition images of Anitin pleading for his life, Boxer aborted his mission and dropped the grenade short of his position.

“Despite that he is an enemy, even though he has killed our boys, I still felt sorry for him,” he said.

Ukrainian officers at the command post told Boxer to make contact. He took a Sharpie marker from his medical kit and wrote in Russian on packaging from his food rations, “Surrender follow the drone.” He filled the packaging with dirt for heft.

The drone flew a four-minute route and dropped the note to Anitin, who clambered over the wall of the trench to retrieve it. That’s when he knew this was for real. “They made their will known, and I showed them that I agreed,” he said.

The drones watched Anitin set off into no-man’s land. He stepped over discarded rifles, grenades and helmets, and navigated around severed limbs and decaying bodies. “He was walking like a zombie. He was walking on top of his dead comrades lying around him,” said a second lieutenant in the 92nd Brigade’s Achilles drone company who uses the call sign Touareg.

Achilles and another drone unit called Code 9.2 took turns leading Anitin on a winding route through multiple trenches to minimize the danger, flying for 30 minutes at a time and then replacing their batteries. The Russian soldier looked up at them occasionally, seeking confirmation that he wasn’t going to be harmed. He stopped frequently to sip water from a bottle lying on the ground, smoke a cigarette or just rest.

When he reached the end of one trench, he walked along a main road, then paused beside a disabled armored personnel carrier. Seconds later, an explosion erupted on the other side of the vehicle. Russian artillery appeared to be targeting him.

The drones watched him continue down the road, raising his hands in the air as Ukrainian trenches came into view. Caught between two clashing armies, he took cover in artillery craters. Mortars rocked the ground and bullets whizzed overhead. Shrapnel from an explosion downed one of the drones.

Anitin was within sight of a Ukrainian position ringed by barbed wire. He made a run for it, dodging a Russian mortar. Wary of spooking the Ukrainians, he dropped to his knees and removed his helmet and flak jacket. He rose and hurried toward a trench, where two soldiers pointed their rifles at him. They pinned him to the ground, bound his hands and loaded him into a Humvee truck. (For the full video of Anitin’s escape and capture, click here.)

Less than a week later, advancing Ukrainian forces captured the trench where Anitin’s ordeal began. By then, he was sharing a cell at a detention facility in the Kharkiv region with three other captured recruits.

He spoke to the Journal there on May 19 in the presence of a guard. The room’s lime-green walls were bare except for a poster with instructions for making calls on one of four phones.

The head of the facility said prisoners of war could contact their relatives by letter conveyed by the Red Cross. Anitin said he hadn’t attempted to get in touch with his family. His daughter turned 4 the day before he was captured.

Even though he could face jail if returned to Russia in a prisoner swap, Anitin said that is all he wants now.

“Let them lock me up,” he said. “I’d like to return home to my family, and never experience the sorts of things that I have seen here.”

[ALA KEKSIÄ SELITYKSIÄ PAAVO]

Hieman taas hirvittää kyllä. Yle:

Länsiviranomaiset: Ukrainan vastahyökkäys etenee hitaasti ja vaatii kovia sotilastappioita
Ukrainan joukot etenevät hitaasti ja kärsivät kovia tappioita pyrkiessään vastahyökkäyksessä kohti Venäjän pääpuolustuslinjaa. Näin arvioivat brittilehti The Guardianin haastattelemat länsimaiset viranomaiset.

– Venäjän menettelytavat ja puolustus ovat osoittautuneet Ukrainalle haastaviksi ja kalliiksi hyökkääville joukoille, siksi eteneminen tällä hetkellä on hidasta, nimettömänä pysytellyt viranomainen sanoo.

Virkailija kuvaa tilannetta Ukrainalle erittäin vaikeaksi.

– Heillä on vastassaan hyvin valmisteltu puolustuslinja, jonka rakentamiseen Venäjällä on ollut aikaa kuukausia.

Juttuun linkattu Guardianin artikkeli:

Spoiler:

‘Extremely fierce’ fighting as Russian forces resist Ukrainian counteroffensive
Kyiv and western sources issue downbeat assessment as Moscow targets supply lines in Odesa with deadly cruise missile strike

Kyiv has said its troops are battling under Russian “air and artillery superiority” as cruise missiles targeting the supply lines of the Ukrainian counteroffensive killed three people working a nightshift in a warehouse in the southern city of Odesa.

The country’s deputy defence minister, Hanna Maliar, said she could report just partial success over the last 24 hours, during which the progress of Ukraine’s forces had been measured only in the hundreds of metres as they sought to advance in the east and south.

Western officials added to the sombre tone as they briefed that Ukraine was taking significant casualties and making slow progress towards Russia’s main line of defence, in one of the west’s first assessments of the Ukrainian counteroffensive launched on 4 June.

“The Russian manoeuvre and defence approach is proving challenging for Ukraine and costly to attacking forces, hence the advance at the moment is slow,” an official said. They added that “grinding, costly warfare” was likely for many months to come.

“This is incredibly difficult,” the official said. “They are going against a well-prepared line that the Russians have had months to prepare.”

The downbeat assessments came as what was described as extremely fierce fighting spilled over again into Ukraine’s urban centres. Kalibr missiles hit Odesa at 2.40am on Wednesday, setting a warehouse, a business centre, an educational institution, restaurants and shops ablaze.

It was a one of a number of attacks across the country on Wednesday that left 13 civilians dead and 24 injured. The death toll from a strike on a warehouse and apartment block in Kryvyi Rih was also raised to 12 after the death of a 67-year-old man in hospital overnight.

Natalia Humeniuk, a spokesperson for Ukraine’s southern defence forces, said there was a pattern to the recent strikes.

“The missile attack on the Odesa region was apparently aimed at the objects sought by the enemy in the area of logistics support for the defence forces,” she said. “They have already begun active operations at the front. The same attack took place earlier in Kryvyi Rih.

“This is an area that the Russians interpret as an area of resources for the defence forces. They also attacked Odesa. They attacked a warehouse with water and consumer goods. They also hit a business centre. The Russians say: ‘We are hitting decision-making centres,’ so apparently for them it is a business decision-making centre.”

Andriy Yermak, the head of the office of the Ukrainian presidency, said Moscow’s liberal use of cruise missiles showed the need for a tightening of economic sanctions on Russia.

“The Russians shelled the city with Kalibr cruise missiles. Civilians died. Each of these missiles has at least 40 foreign components,” he said. “Without microelectronics, Russia will not be able to produce them. Sanctions must be strengthened, in particular against those who help the terrorist country to obtain components for weapons.”

Russia has been able to bypass western sanctions on key weapons components through the use of third countries.

The UK-based Conflict Armament Research organisation identified 144 European, Asian and US manufacturers last year whose components were ending up in advanced weapons such as Kalibr cruise missiles.

Kyiv has suggested that progress is being made in recent days in its long-anticipated counteroffensive, with 100 sq km said to have been liberated in recent days. Vladimir Putin, however, has said his forces have imposed “catastrophic” losses upon Ukraine’s military.

In a post on Telegram, Maliar said Ukrainian forces had advanced 200m to 500m in the region around Bakhmut and 300m to 350m south easterly in the Zaporizhzhia oblast on Wednesday.

“Our troops are moving in the conditions of extremely fierce battles, aviation and artillery superiority of the enemy,” she said, adding that Russia was also suffering heavy material losses. Sources suggested that only 10% of the Ukrainian reserve amassed for the renewed offensive was yet in play.

Rafael Grossi, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, who met Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, on Tuesday, was forced to delay a scheduled visit to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in Russian-controlled territory on Wednesday as a result of the fierce fighting in the oblast.

Grossi had earlier spoken of being “very concerned” that the nuclear plant could become embroiled in the counteroffensive, with particular anxiety caused by the recent damage done to the Kakhovka dam, which has led to a reduction in the water levels of a reservoir used to cool the facility.

In Odesa, one man, named only as Volodymyr, told local media that he had been with his wife and three-week-old daughter when a Kalibr missile hit near their apartment in the early hours of Wednesday.

“We were sleeping in our bedroom when we heard an explosion, all the windows were shattered, and we heard a loud screeching sound from the entire building,” he said. “Then we grabbed the baby and ran to the bathroom to be behind two walls. Only after that we realised that there were no windows, no doors, no idea what was happening.”

Belarus’s president, Alexander Lukashenko, said his country had started taking delivery of Russian tactical nuclear weapons, some of which he boasted were three times more powerful than the atomic bombs the US dropped on Japan in 1945.

Lukashenko, who said he would coordinate with Putin should the need arise to use nuclear weapons, said the warheads would be on Belarusian territory “in several days”, although there has been no independent verification of his comments.

He said: “We have always been a target. They [the west] have wanted to tear us to pieces since 2020. No one has so far fought against a nuclear country, a country that has nuclear weapons.”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/ ... se-ukraine

[Lusku]

Hieman taas hirvittää kyllä. Yle:

Länsiviranomaiset: Ukrainan vastahyökkäys etenee hitaasti ja vaatii kovia sotilastappioita
Ukrainan joukot etenevät hitaasti ja kärsivät kovia tappioita pyrkiessään vastahyökkäyksessä kohti Venäjän pääpuolustuslinjaa. Näin arvioivat brittilehti The Guardianin haastattelemat länsimaiset viranomaiset.

– Venäjän menettelytavat ja puolustus ovat osoittautuneet Ukrainalle haastaviksi ja kalliiksi hyökkääville joukoille, siksi eteneminen tällä hetkellä on hidasta, nimettömänä pysytellyt viranomainen sanoo.

Virkailija kuvaa tilannetta Ukrainalle erittäin vaikeaksi.

– Heillä on vastassaan hyvin valmisteltu puolustuslinja, jonka rakentamiseen Venäjällä on ollut aikaa kuukausia.

Juttuun linkattu Guardianin artikkeli:

Spoiler:

‘Extremely fierce’ fighting as Russian forces resist Ukrainian counteroffensive
Kyiv and western sources issue downbeat assessment as Moscow targets supply lines in Odesa with deadly cruise missile strike

Kyiv has said its troops are battling under Russian “air and artillery superiority” as cruise missiles targeting the supply lines of the Ukrainian counteroffensive killed three people working a nightshift in a warehouse in the southern city of Odesa.

The country’s deputy defence minister, Hanna Maliar, said she could report just partial success over the last 24 hours, during which the progress of Ukraine’s forces had been measured only in the hundreds of metres as they sought to advance in the east and south.

Western officials added to the sombre tone as they briefed that Ukraine was taking significant casualties and making slow progress towards Russia’s main line of defence, in one of the west’s first assessments of the Ukrainian counteroffensive launched on 4 June.

“The Russian manoeuvre and defence approach is proving challenging for Ukraine and costly to attacking forces, hence the advance at the moment is slow,” an official said. They added that “grinding, costly warfare” was likely for many months to come.

“This is incredibly difficult,” the official said. “They are going against a well-prepared line that the Russians have had months to prepare.”

The downbeat assessments came as what was described as extremely fierce fighting spilled over again into Ukraine’s urban centres. Kalibr missiles hit Odesa at 2.40am on Wednesday, setting a warehouse, a business centre, an educational institution, restaurants and shops ablaze.

It was a one of a number of attacks across the country on Wednesday that left 13 civilians dead and 24 injured. The death toll from a strike on a warehouse and apartment block in Kryvyi Rih was also raised to 12 after the death of a 67-year-old man in hospital overnight.

Natalia Humeniuk, a spokesperson for Ukraine’s southern defence forces, said there was a pattern to the recent strikes.

“The missile attack on the Odesa region was apparently aimed at the objects sought by the enemy in the area of logistics support for the defence forces,” she said. “They have already begun active operations at the front. The same attack took place earlier in Kryvyi Rih.

“This is an area that the Russians interpret as an area of resources for the defence forces. They also attacked Odesa. They attacked a warehouse with water and consumer goods. They also hit a business centre. The Russians say: ‘We are hitting decision-making centres,’ so apparently for them it is a business decision-making centre.”

Andriy Yermak, the head of the office of the Ukrainian presidency, said Moscow’s liberal use of cruise missiles showed the need for a tightening of economic sanctions on Russia.

“The Russians shelled the city with Kalibr cruise missiles. Civilians died. Each of these missiles has at least 40 foreign components,” he said. “Without microelectronics, Russia will not be able to produce them. Sanctions must be strengthened, in particular against those who help the terrorist country to obtain components for weapons.”

Russia has been able to bypass western sanctions on key weapons components through the use of third countries.

The UK-based Conflict Armament Research organisation identified 144 European, Asian and US manufacturers last year whose components were ending up in advanced weapons such as Kalibr cruise missiles.

Kyiv has suggested that progress is being made in recent days in its long-anticipated counteroffensive, with 100 sq km said to have been liberated in recent days. Vladimir Putin, however, has said his forces have imposed “catastrophic” losses upon Ukraine’s military.

In a post on Telegram, Maliar said Ukrainian forces had advanced 200m to 500m in the region around Bakhmut and 300m to 350m south easterly in the Zaporizhzhia oblast on Wednesday.

“Our troops are moving in the conditions of extremely fierce battles, aviation and artillery superiority of the enemy,” she said, adding that Russia was also suffering heavy material losses. Sources suggested that only 10% of the Ukrainian reserve amassed for the renewed offensive was yet in play.

Rafael Grossi, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, who met Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, on Tuesday, was forced to delay a scheduled visit to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in Russian-controlled territory on Wednesday as a result of the fierce fighting in the oblast.

Grossi had earlier spoken of being “very concerned” that the nuclear plant could become embroiled in the counteroffensive, with particular anxiety caused by the recent damage done to the Kakhovka dam, which has led to a reduction in the water levels of a reservoir used to cool the facility.

In Odesa, one man, named only as Volodymyr, told local media that he had been with his wife and three-week-old daughter when a Kalibr missile hit near their apartment in the early hours of Wednesday.

“We were sleeping in our bedroom when we heard an explosion, all the windows were shattered, and we heard a loud screeching sound from the entire building,” he said. “Then we grabbed the baby and ran to the bathroom to be behind two walls. Only after that we realised that there were no windows, no doors, no idea what was happening.”

Belarus’s president, Alexander Lukashenko, said his country had started taking delivery of Russian tactical nuclear weapons, some of which he boasted were three times more powerful than the atomic bombs the US dropped on Japan in 1945.

Lukashenko, who said he would coordinate with Putin should the need arise to use nuclear weapons, said the warheads would be on Belarusian territory “in several days”, although there has been no independent verification of his comments.

He said: “We have always been a target. They [the west] have wanted to tear us to pieces since 2020. No one has so far fought against a nuclear country, a country that has nuclear weapons.”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/ ... se-ukraine

Njoo. ehkä Venäjä on oppinut joistain virheistään Toivottavasti Ukrainalla on kunnon suunnitelma.
Miehiä venäläisillä on paikoittain ihan hittona ainakin. koko Venäjän asevoima aika lailla kiinni tuolla.

[Mäd Bästärd]

Tulipa muuten mieleen tosta Shoigu vs Prigo -otattelusta että jos Wagner taipuis asevoimien alaisuuteen niin tekiskö se Venäjästä de jure miehittäjän Afrikassa?

[ManowaRäiä]

Hieman taas hirvittää kyllä. Yle:

Länsiviranomaiset: Ukrainan vastahyökkäys etenee hitaasti ja vaatii kovia sotilastappioita
Ukrainan joukot etenevät hitaasti ja kärsivät kovia tappioita pyrkiessään vastahyökkäyksessä kohti Venäjän pääpuolustuslinjaa. Näin arvioivat brittilehti The Guardianin haastattelemat länsimaiset viranomaiset.

– Venäjän menettelytavat ja puolustus ovat osoittautuneet Ukrainalle haastaviksi ja kalliiksi hyökkääville joukoille, siksi eteneminen tällä hetkellä on hidasta, nimettömänä pysytellyt viranomainen sanoo.

Virkailija kuvaa tilannetta Ukrainalle erittäin vaikeaksi.

– Heillä on vastassaan hyvin valmisteltu puolustuslinja, jonka rakentamiseen Venäjällä on ollut aikaa kuukausia.

Juttuun linkattu Guardianin artikkeli:

Spoiler:

‘Extremely fierce’ fighting as Russian forces resist Ukrainian counteroffensive
Kyiv and western sources issue downbeat assessment as Moscow targets supply lines in Odesa with deadly cruise missile strike

Kyiv has said its troops are battling under Russian “air and artillery superiority” as cruise missiles targeting the supply lines of the Ukrainian counteroffensive killed three people working a nightshift in a warehouse in the southern city of Odesa.

The country’s deputy defence minister, Hanna Maliar, said she could report just partial success over the last 24 hours, during which the progress of Ukraine’s forces had been measured only in the hundreds of metres as they sought to advance in the east and south.

Western officials added to the sombre tone as they briefed that Ukraine was taking significant casualties and making slow progress towards Russia’s main line of defence, in one of the west’s first assessments of the Ukrainian counteroffensive launched on 4 June.

“The Russian manoeuvre and defence approach is proving challenging for Ukraine and costly to attacking forces, hence the advance at the moment is slow,” an official said. They added that “grinding, costly warfare” was likely for many months to come.

“This is incredibly difficult,” the official said. “They are going against a well-prepared line that the Russians have had months to prepare.”

The downbeat assessments came as what was described as extremely fierce fighting spilled over again into Ukraine’s urban centres. Kalibr missiles hit Odesa at 2.40am on Wednesday, setting a warehouse, a business centre, an educational institution, restaurants and shops ablaze.

It was a one of a number of attacks across the country on Wednesday that left 13 civilians dead and 24 injured. The death toll from a strike on a warehouse and apartment block in Kryvyi Rih was also raised to 12 after the death of a 67-year-old man in hospital overnight.

Natalia Humeniuk, a spokesperson for Ukraine’s southern defence forces, said there was a pattern to the recent strikes.

“The missile attack on the Odesa region was apparently aimed at the objects sought by the enemy in the area of logistics support for the defence forces,” she said. “They have already begun active operations at the front. The same attack took place earlier in Kryvyi Rih.

“This is an area that the Russians interpret as an area of resources for the defence forces. They also attacked Odesa. They attacked a warehouse with water and consumer goods. They also hit a business centre. The Russians say: ‘We are hitting decision-making centres,’ so apparently for them it is a business decision-making centre.”

Andriy Yermak, the head of the office of the Ukrainian presidency, said Moscow’s liberal use of cruise missiles showed the need for a tightening of economic sanctions on Russia.

“The Russians shelled the city with Kalibr cruise missiles. Civilians died. Each of these missiles has at least 40 foreign components,” he said. “Without microelectronics, Russia will not be able to produce them. Sanctions must be strengthened, in particular against those who help the terrorist country to obtain components for weapons.”

Russia has been able to bypass western sanctions on key weapons components through the use of third countries.

The UK-based Conflict Armament Research organisation identified 144 European, Asian and US manufacturers last year whose components were ending up in advanced weapons such as Kalibr cruise missiles.

Kyiv has suggested that progress is being made in recent days in its long-anticipated counteroffensive, with 100 sq km said to have been liberated in recent days. Vladimir Putin, however, has said his forces have imposed “catastrophic” losses upon Ukraine’s military.

In a post on Telegram, Maliar said Ukrainian forces had advanced 200m to 500m in the region around Bakhmut and 300m to 350m south easterly in the Zaporizhzhia oblast on Wednesday.

“Our troops are moving in the conditions of extremely fierce battles, aviation and artillery superiority of the enemy,” she said, adding that Russia was also suffering heavy material losses. Sources suggested that only 10% of the Ukrainian reserve amassed for the renewed offensive was yet in play.

Rafael Grossi, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, who met Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, on Tuesday, was forced to delay a scheduled visit to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in Russian-controlled territory on Wednesday as a result of the fierce fighting in the oblast.

Grossi had earlier spoken of being “very concerned” that the nuclear plant could become embroiled in the counteroffensive, with particular anxiety caused by the recent damage done to the Kakhovka dam, which has led to a reduction in the water levels of a reservoir used to cool the facility.

In Odesa, one man, named only as Volodymyr, told local media that he had been with his wife and three-week-old daughter when a Kalibr missile hit near their apartment in the early hours of Wednesday.

“We were sleeping in our bedroom when we heard an explosion, all the windows were shattered, and we heard a loud screeching sound from the entire building,” he said. “Then we grabbed the baby and ran to the bathroom to be behind two walls. Only after that we realised that there were no windows, no doors, no idea what was happening.”

Belarus’s president, Alexander Lukashenko, said his country had started taking delivery of Russian tactical nuclear weapons, some of which he boasted were three times more powerful than the atomic bombs the US dropped on Japan in 1945.

Lukashenko, who said he would coordinate with Putin should the need arise to use nuclear weapons, said the warheads would be on Belarusian territory “in several days”, although there has been no independent verification of his comments.

He said: “We have always been a target. They [the west] have wanted to tear us to pieces since 2020. No one has so far fought against a nuclear country, a country that has nuclear weapons.”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/ ... se-ukraine

Njoo. ehkä Venäjä on oppinut joistain virheistään Toivottavasti Ukrainalla on kunnon suunnitelma.
Miehiä venäläisillä on paikoittain ihan hittona ainakin. koko Venäjän asevoima aika lailla kiinni tuolla.

Hyökkääminen ja aselajien välinen yhteistoiminta on tunnetusti hankalaa ja kuluttavaa puuhaa kun taas puolustaminen suhteellisen yksinkertaista ja monestihan on taidettu mainita Venäjän pioneerien suhteellisen kova kyvykkyys. Toivottavasti hyökkäyksen alettua on pidetty kiinni uudesta koulutuksesta, eikä palattu tosipaikan tullen puna-armeijan oppeihin. Kallista touhua ostaa oman maan vapautta, kun vain sotilaallinen menestys pitää Ukrainan pään pinnalla lännen tuella.

[Dame Cressida Dick]

Kai nyt sota on julmaa ja ihmisiä kuolee. Vastuuhan on esim. meillä Suomessa, kun äänestettiin halvaannuksen puolesta. Olemme tietysti pieni tekijä, mutta esim. ne f16 koneet ja niiden tuoma ilmaherruus säästäisivät ukrainalaisia henkiä. Joku nekin on jättänyt antamatta ja niiden antamista vastustanut. On pasifismia ja pasifismia, toinen pyrkii säästämään sorrettujen henkiä, toinen antaa oppressiohallinnon kusta lasten ruumiiden päälle. Ja johtaakin voi vieden eteenpäin oikeita asioita, tai omat edut turvaten seurauksista välittämättä. Rohkeutta pitäisi ja pitääkin olla, muuten Putin voittaa, sorto kiristyy, kaaos leviää ja seuraavat kriisit ovat jonossa. Mekin olemme osa esimerkiksi Kazakstanin kohtaloita.

Ja kun aiemmin puhuttiin Venäjän hajoamisesta, vähän ehkä metsärallia ajaen, Natoon liittyminen on vasta alku. Liettuan raja osoitti Naton heikkouden tarpeeksi häikäilemättömän tai epätoivoisen humanitaarisen vaikuttamisen tai kriisin kohdalla. Jos toiveissa on alueellaan suvereeni ja turvallinen Ukraina, sen toteutuminen vaatii kriisiä Venäjän johdossa. Jeltsinin aikana se kriisi ei eskaloitunut, miten nyt - kukaan ei tiedä. Ja jos kriisi ei eskaloidu, onko jälkiseuraksissa muodostuva systeemi venäläisten kannalta siedettävä? Hyvä se tuskin on.

Bottomline. Olemme auttaneet Ukrainaa, mutta kuolevat ukrainalaiset voisivat säilyä hengissä jos länsi ja Suomikin sen osana olisi tehnyt enemmän. Tästä pitää oppia ja valmistautua Venäjän lopulliseen kriisiytymiseen ja olla valmis auttamaan ja vaikuttamaan. Ei sekään tule olemaan ilmaista, mutta varmasti kannattavaa kaikilla tasoilla.

Ja Ukrainan tukemisessa pitää ottaa ihan uusia askeleita, maksoi pensa pumpulla vaikka sitten sen 5 tai 50 senttiä enemmän. Suomen pitää antaa ja ajaa muidenkin voimakkaampaa tukea kaikilla tasoilla ja kaikilla rintamilla.

[Spandau Mullet]

Koko talvihan on hoettu että vastahyökkäys tulee olemaan vaikea ja vaatimaan tappioita, hyökkääjän asema on aina vaikeampi jne. Katellaan nyt rauhassa miten homma etenee, toivottavasti vielä hyvin.

[Dame Cressida Dick]

Tulipa muuten mieleen tosta Shoigu vs Prigo -otattelusta että jos Wagner taipuis asevoimien alaisuuteen niin tekiskö se Venäjästä de jure miehittäjän Afrikassa?

De factohan se onkin. Tuskin ammuttu afrikkalainen välittää kuka sitä kidutti ennen ampumista. Meillä tietysti on tämmöinenkin etuoikeus. Venäjän johto tuskin välittää ja venäläiset eivät tiedä tai osaavat pitää nokkansa kiinni

[ManowaRäiä]

Koko talvihan on hoettu että vastahyökkäys tulee olemaan vaikea ja vaatimaan tappioita, hyökkääjän asema on aina vaikeampi jne. Katellaan nyt rauhassa miten homma etenee, toivottavasti vielä hyvin.

Tämäkin on totta. Someaika muuttaa konfliktit oman realiajassa tapahtuvaksi oman seuran kannattamiseksi.

[Spandau Mullet]

Koko talvihan on hoettu että vastahyökkäys tulee olemaan vaikea ja vaatimaan tappioita, hyökkääjän asema on aina vaikeampi jne. Katellaan nyt rauhassa miten homma etenee, toivottavasti vielä hyvin.

Tämäkin on totta. Someaika muuttaa konfliktit oman realiajassa tapahtuvaksi oman seuran kannattamiseksi.

Itsekin toki hakkaan F5:ttä ja odottelen hyviä uutisia, mutta olisi hyvä pitää realiteetit mielessä.

[Liskomies]

Mitå katselin niin siinä Vuhledarin länsipuolella Ukraina kai kaivaa uudet linjat ja antaa tykistön jauhaa jonka jälkeen taas mennään.

[Jimi Ketipinor]

Jonkin verran videota on liikkunut, kuinka venäläiset ka52-kopterit tuhoaa ukrainan kalustoa kaukaa ohjatuilla ohjuksilla.