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Ukraine SitRep: Chernihiv Drone Exhibition – Russian Offensive
This morning at around 10:00 local time a Russian missile hit the drama theater in Chernihiv, some 150 kilometer north of Kiev:
"Five people died," Ukrainian Interior Minister Igor Klymenko said about the Chernihiv attack on Telegram. "Thirty-seven people were wounded, including 11 children."
Zelensky said the attack hit "in the center of the city" in a square that houses a "polytechnic university, a theatre".
"An ordinary Saturday, which Russia turned into a day of pain and loss," the Ukrainian leader said after he had arrived in Sweden.
He posted a video from the scene that showed debris around a large Soviet-era building, with parked cars around it that were partially destroyed, with smashed roofs and windows blown out.
AFP reporters saw fire trucks outside the Taras Shevchenko Drama Theatre and Music Academy, which suffered some damage.
The Ukrainian news site Strana reported that the missile hit a conference and exhibition about drones (machine translation):
13:54 There was a comment from the organizer of the drone exhibition at the Chernihiv Drama Theater, which was the target of a Russian strike.
Recall that after the strike, it turned out that the announcement of the exhibition was published in advance. Because of this, the organizers of the exhibition in social networks were accused of actually pointing the missiles themselves, revealing information about the event in advance.
The organizer of the exhibition, a well-known volunteer Maria Berlinskaya, denies the charges. She says that information about the specific venue was not publicly available, and it was sent to participants a few hours before the start of the exhibition. She also says that as soon as the air raid alert started, the exhibition was stopped.
At the same time, judging from the message of Berlinskaya, some of the participants of the exhibition suffered from the impact, as after the alarm was announced, they went not to the shelter, but to the street.
This week the Ukrainian army committed its last reserve brigade with western equipment to its counter-offensive. It will get ground up just like the forces it is replacing. The furthest the counter-offensive has gone in total was in the south of Orkiv where it progressed some 12 kilometer. It took more than 72 days, and many losses of men and material, to get that far. Tokmak, an important traffic center that Ukraine would like to take, is still 12 kilometer away. It is also protected by several well build defensive lines which the Ukrainian forces will be unable to cross.
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On the second axis of the counter-offensive, south of Velyka Novosilka, the maximum progress is some 6 to 8 kilometer. Several small villages, now destroyed, were captured along the way. The number of lives lost during the fight is much bigger than the number of inhabitants those villages previously had.
The aim of the counter-offensive was to reach the Azov Sea or, if that was not possible, to go far enough to get all southern roads under artillery fire. The distance from the frontline to the sea as of June 5 was 100 kilometer. There are still 88 kilometer to go. But time is running out and all reserves have been committed.
Over the last week the Russian Defense Ministry reported on average 770 Ukrainian frontline casualties per day. The Ukrainian counter-offensive will likely culminate next week. It has reached is maximum potential and will now peter out.
That is the moment when the Russian army will go on the offensive. A sure sign of this was last night's visit of President Putin to Rostov-on-Don from where the 'special military operation' is controlled. General Gerasimov, the leader of the Russian military, and others briefed Putin about their plans.
I have no idea where or how large the Russian offensive will be, but two days ago the Belorussian President Lukashenko gave a hint of its potential size:
COMBATE |šµš· – @upholdreality – 21:56 UTC Ā· Aug 17, 2023
LUKASHENKO to Ukrainian reporter: "Your counteroffensive cost 45,000 people in dead and maimed. 45,000!.. Your losses are 1 to 8 at the frontline. And [Russia has] 250,000 people in reserve with cutting-edge hardware. You will be crushed… and the Poles rub their hands in glee. Pushed by the Americans, they will cut off the western regions… You have to take your head into your hands and act on the basis of reality. Act in the interests of this huge and beautiful territory."
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Here is a longer version of the Lukashenko video with close captioning and the complete interview which unfortunately has no close captioning.
Dr. George W Oprisko | Aug 19 2023 21:52 utc | 102
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I’ve always thought you were a bit of a loony, since your first post. But today you excelled yourself. I group you in with the pompous, self-important, bigotted, space-hogging pundits like RSH and Martyanov. No wonder you like them. Three peas in a pod. And just like RSH, you leave your opinionated droppings in forums and comment sections all over the web, in some vain search for respect and notoriety. You lecture, you condescend, you hypothesise, as much as anyone else on this site, yet you never miss an opportunity to critique other people’s conjecture with which you disagree. Just like Hack and Martyanov, you never state “in my opinion”. You only prognosticate unarguable “truths”. Just because you’re 75, well educated, and have travelled the world on a yacht, doesn’t make you an Oracle about the SMO. Pull ya fkn head in, ffs.
Above, in #102, your use of “we” is indicative of someone lost in their hateful fantasies of one-sided moral outrage, as if you are some die-hard Russian patriot at the front. But you’re not. You’re just a self-invented, US businessman-grifter (bankrupt 2020), with a PhD in Nutrient Utilization, a degree in Chemistry, and a few pet projects in alternative energies which enable you to name drop “collaborations” all over the globe, all via the pretence of a smokey, 1980s, self-built, self-written, vanity website which has no authentic or reciprocal links to/from any other website in the world. It’s a sham. “Professor Dr George W. Oprisko III”. Lmao at your vanities.
Yes, I know you have a Russian wife/parther and identify with Russian and Jewish and Christian Orthodox and Nazi-fighting family history, but from your condo in Florida … or wherever you presently operate your cyber “Institute” of consulting and begging … you are far far from the trenches of bleeding Russian soldiers or Donbass City cluster munitions. Your use of the royal “we” is pretentiousness in the extreme. Even the fervent Russian nationals on this site don’t extend their partisanship that far. By all means, take a side. But that does not make you omniscient.
You may well criticise @shadowbanned and others for their far out perspectives on how to manage the SMO, but I observe exactly the same fanatacism, ideological obsession, and presumptuousness of self-righteousness in yourself. You think you have knowledge, wisdom, overview. But you donāt. You just have a mouse on a pad and Google Search as the source of your ramblings, filtered through your own conscious, subconscious, and unconscious biases, all of which amount to nothing more than just 1 out of 8 billion opinions on this planet.
You copiously quote outside authorities, to give YOUR POSTS that air of authority. “Medvedev says ….” after which you write “He’s right, of course”. It’s an old device the intellectually insecure use to bolster their own viewpoints or support their prejudices.
Ha! You tell trolls to STFU; you tell the ignorant to get better informed; you suggest others learn better English before they post into your playground. But in Putin’s eyes, the MoD’s eyes, my eyes, and probably many others here, you are just a big-noting, bag of hot air, venting uncensored in a metaphorical cyber bar — like the rest. In other words, no more no less of a troll on the world stage than all the other armchair observers and generals. But at least you’re a legend in your own mind.
PS. Go on, report me. I don’t care if I’m banned. Unlike your own ego, I have no vested interest in being able to comment on MoA. I can still read what’s valuable and just skip your verbiage.
Posted by: SCCC | Aug 20 2023 3:24 utc | 214
Posted by: Constantine | Aug 20 2023 3:35 utc | 215
>i have my own view as to why the Russian authorities and media use this label and its part of a much bigger problem, partly connected with the conflict in Ukraine, but it’s too much to expound my view now. It is still, however, a massive blunder it PR terms. And propaganda has been of paramount importance to keep many Ukrainians loyal to the Kiev regime, even in a fatalistic way, instead of emptying their magazines on the Maidanist scum and their masters and joining the Russians to liberate their country.
It’s boils down to contempt for the idea that central Ukrainians (as opposed to Galicians, who are even more distinct) are a distinct ethnic group. Not as distinct as Chechens and Tatars, but distinct enough that they resent denial of that distinctiveness as an insult to their honor, and men will fight to the death over such insults. You see this same attitude in this forum, in statements that Ukrainian language is same as Russian. As someone who knows both, and also knows Spanish, I can assure you they are as separate as Spanish and Italian. No Spaniard thinks he is just an Italian who can’t speak Italian properly and if you said that to the whole Spanish nation, you are asking for a fight.
Ukrainian language wasn’t imposed on central Ukraine. They always spoke that way in villages. They always dressed slightly different from great Russians, had slightly different customs, etc. Same as Tatars and Chechens are distinct, except Ukrainians are closer to great Russians in religion, language, customs and so can easily integrate into Russia.
Which is why taking Ukrainian territory was a bad idea from day 1. The goal should always have been demilitarization and regime change so that Ukraine becomes a Russian vassal/puppet, without giving Ukrainians motivation to fight by seizing terroritory and calling Ukraine a fake state.
Of course, Putin is not all powerful, so a lot of compromises were necessary from a practical point of view. Crimea had to be taken to create a crisis and forestall NATO membership, since NATO can’t accept members into middle of crises. But seizure should have been temporary. Then Donbas and Kherson seizure was needed to allow conscripts to be assigned to those areas, since law only allows conscripts on Russian territory. I think a better idea would have been to change the constitution to make ALL of Ukraine part of Russia, but autonomous like Chechnya, but maybe that was too bold a step until Russian people were fully angered.
Dangling the possibility of restoring Donbas and Crimea to Ukraine, if it joins the Russian federation as an autonomous region, is an excellent way to give the Ukrainian people a face saving way to end the war. There is probably zero likelihood of this happening in reality, but putting the offer on the table could stir up propaganda trouble for the Ukrainian government. Kyiv would dismiss the offer as not serious, but it serves to emphasize to the Ukrainian people that Russia’s goal is not the obliteration of Ukraine or Ukrainian culture and language, but rather ensuring that Ukraine is forever under Russian military control and forever eliminating the possibility of Ukraine joining some other military alliance.
As for the Russian military incompetence, that again gets back to Putin is not all powerful. All bureaucracies inevitably become corrupt, which is why no socialist state will ever work. There need to be multiple competing oligarchies, of which the bureaucracy is one leg, progessive entrepreneurial meritocracy the second leg, conservative rentier plutocracy the third leg. Soviet Union had only the bureaucracy leg, so of course it became corrupt with no other leg to check the corruption. Modern Russia has the other legs, but entrepreneurial meritocracy leg is weak compared to bureaucracy and rentier plutocracy, which legs have become incestuous, so bureaucracy continues to be corrupt, with top bureaucrats creating personal fiefdoms, stealing government money, putting incompetent relatives in power, etc. Russia is very lucky to have a competent top leaders like Putin and his inner circle, but there was a limit to how much reform they could impose. Under pressure of war, reform is happening fast, however.
Full mobilization in early 2022 would have required buy-in by the Russian oligarchs, who constitute the conservative rentier plutocracy leg, meaning they dislike radical moves of any sort. There is a risk those oligarch could have used their wealth to bribe corrupt elements in the military to overthrow Putin. It is possible Putin moved slowly and cautiously in 2022 because he doubted his grip on power. Now that the Russian people are fully aroused, the rentier plutocrats will not dare to oppose Putin, and enough military officers have died in battle that the military as a whole is not going to tolerate indulging corruption and incompetence within the military any longer because that is now seen as a direct threat to their own lives.
Another point, which i repeat over and over, is this echo chamber severely underestimates the potential industrial capacity of the USA led alliance. Look outside. How many automobiles and trucks manufactured by the USA alliance (including Japan, Korea, EU, Mexican subsidiaries,c etc) versus manufactured in Russia? Until very recently, not even many Chinese automobiles and trucks exported to the West. If that USA alliance ever got serious, it could be massively dangerous. Moving slow ensures it doesn’t get serious.
Note that USA led propaganda industry has been very serious and 100% aroused from day 1, whereas the actual USA led military and industrial side is still dragging their feet. There is a deep split in the USA led alliance, between the idealists who control the top levels of the civil bureaucracy of the USA alliance versus the realists who control the military bureaucracy and the rentier plutocrats who own most of the industrial businesses. The idealists have long been living in a fool’s paradise where propaganda is everything, whereas the realists are well aware that Russia has nukes and missiles that can sink the USA Navy, and standing behind Russia is China, and so the realists are not interested in war as long as Russia moves slowly. It is strongly in Russia’s interest to maintain this inner conflict in the West by continuing to move slowly and gradually and moderately. No throwing nukes around like shadowbanned recommends. Eventually, the fool’s paradise phase will end and the idealists will be kicked to the curb and realists will again take full control of the west. At which point Russia and China can arrange a lasting peace with the West.
Posted by: Revelo | Aug 20 2023 5:58 utc | 237
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