News & views not related to the wars in Ukraine and Palestine …

@all – I will be offline for the next two or so days.

Please behave.

b.

A Russian missile strike on the Ukrainian Military Institute of Communications in Poltava has at least killed 41 and wounded two hundreds. Other sources claim higher numbers.

Poltava is about 120 kilometer from the Russian border. The warning times after the missile launch was allegedly too short for everyone to reach the bunkers.

The Institute of Communications is training radio and radar operators. Its main multi-story building has been completely destroyed.

Britta Ellwanger, a (former?) Swedish volunteer with the Ukrainian army wrote that Swedish friends of hers, also volunteering with the Ukrainian army, were among those who died in the strike.

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Sweden had promised to gift two Swedish AWACS planes to Ukraine:

Sweden has announced sending its Saab 340B AEW&C (Airborne Early Warning and Control) aircraft to Kyiv, as per an announcement made by its defense ministry on May 29, 2024.

Given the nature of the Institute of Communications in Poltava it is likely that the Swedes were training Ukrainian operators for those.

One wonders why the training was not held elsewhere.

The Swedes should have remembered the history of that city:

The Battle of Poltava[e] (8 July 1709) was the decisive and largest battle of the Great Northern War. The Russian army under the command of Tsar Peter I defeated the Swedish army under the command of Carl Gustaf Rehnskiöld. The battle put an end to the status of the Swedish Empire as a European great power, as well as its eastbound expansion, and marked the beginning of Russian supremacy in eastern Europe.

Swedish and NATO attempts to change that status of Russia in eastern Europe more than 300 years after it had been achieved has ended in failure.

Michael Kofman and Rob Lee are U.S. experts who have visited the Ukrainian front-lines several times to then write positive hopeful pieces, in the sense of the West, about the conflict.

Their latest longer piece, published in Foreign Affairs, deviates from their older ones.

Ukraine’s Gamble
The Risks and Rewards of the Offensive Into Russia’s Kursk Region

They describe the Ukrainian incursion into the Russian Kursk oblast and the resulting lack of troops on the eastern Donbas front at some length.

They seem, like many others, not to be sure what it is all about. Neither Ukraine nor the countries that supports it seem to have any theory of victory.

Determining what this operation says about Ukraine’s overall strategy and the implications it has for the broader war effort is essential. In some ways, the offensive raises more questions than answers.
…
For much of 2024, the West has been supporting a Ukrainian strike campaign in Crimea without a good explanation for what was meant to follow. It was serviceable as an end onto itself, degrading Russian air defense and support infrastructure. But that campaign now seems disconnected from Ukraine’s efforts in Kursk and its broader drone strike campaign against economic infrastructure in Russia. A series of disparate efforts do not a strategy make.
…
Since 2023, Washington has been out of ideas for how to successfully end the war on terms favorable to Ukraine. Kyiv, meanwhile, has been focused on stabilizing the frontline, but equally worried about the prevailing gloomy narrative and the sense that Ukraine is losing the war. The Kursk operation helps address the latter at the risk of doing damage to the former. Whether or not Kursk succeeds, at least it is not an attempt to refight the failed 2023 offensive, a set piece battle in which Ukraine held no decisive advantages. That said, Kyiv’s present theory of success remains unclear.

Kofman and Lee are unhappy:

Cont. reading: Ukraine – U.S. ‘Experts’ Throw The Towel

News & views related to the war in Palestine …

News & views related to the war in Ukraine …

It seems that the Ukrainian army is now betting on holding Pokrovsk, a rail and road hub which happens to also hold the only coal mine usable for coke production. Without the Ukrainian coke the already damaged Ukrainian metallurgic industry will be in a steep decline.

The 72nd brigade was ordered from Ugledar in the south, where it had been in defensive positions over the last two years, towards the Pokrovsk salient. Following that move the Russian army launched an all out attack on Ugledar.

The Ukrainian units involved in the Kursk invasion are reportedly also getting called back to move towards Pokrovsk. But they have by now received a serious beating and have lost a lot of their armored vehicles and fighting capabilities.

Troops on the move are targets. Lets see how many are left when they arrive.

…

Last week's posts on Moon of Alabama:

Ukraine:

• Aug 26 – Ukraine Develops 'Its Own' Cruise Missile
• Aug 27 – Ukraine's Air Defense Success Numbers Are Likely Fake
• Aug 28 – Ukraine SitRep: The Collapse Of The Donbas Front
• Aug 30 – Ukraine SitRep: Patriot Airdefense System Vs. Ukrainian F-16 – 1:0
  Related:
  – Free book to download: The Maidan Massacre in Ukraine – The Mass Killing that Changed the World – Ivan Katchanovski
  – Ukrainian defense minister tells CNN ‘I hope we were heard’ after presenting list of targets inside Russia to US officials – CNN
  – Kiev should not expect more long-range missiles from US – CNN – RT

Palestine:

• Aug 28 – Israel Starts Ethnic Cleansing In West Bank
  Related:
  – Israel’s war on Gaza live: Israeli siege cuts off water, power in Jenin – Aljazeera
  – West Bank attacks: To western leaders, there are no red lines for Israel's slaughter – MEE
  – Renowned Surgeon and Lead Author of New Lancet Study Tortured by Israeli Military – Drop Site
  – “We told Israel, ‘Look, if you guys have to go, we’re behind you all the way’” – Alastair Crooke / SCF
  – ‘Nothing is left’: Israel’s military tells Gaza residents to go home but they find only rubble – Yahoo/CNN

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Other issues:

Cont. reading: The MoA Week In Review – OT 2024-208