Posted by: boneless | Jan 26 2025 13:58 utc | 2

Remember how Lavrov ran his mouth that F-16 will be treated as nuclear carriers?
Which they indeed should be. But here we are, their use is normalized, as were the regular NATO strikes on the Russian interior.

Posted by: ANON2022 | Jan 26 2025 14:06 utc | 3

Nearly two weeks since Ukraine fired ATACMS into Russia and there are rumours emanating from the US that the targeting and operating cells, who operate these systems, might be prosecuted by the new administration, as the US is not at war with Russia. Perhaps Biden’s pardon bonanza should have included more people.
Posted by: ANON2022 | Jan 26 2025 14:06 utc | 3
At the moment they’re burning holes in the sky, costing $27K per hour, and without the usual support package there is little they can achieve tactically, let alone affect an operational impact.

Posted by: Milites | Jan 26 2025 14:29 utc | 5

Milites@5……probing flight costs are outweighed by identifying and destroying Russian AD assets….
Cheers M
…..remember all that cheering when Russia scored that long range kill, way back when, with their game changing weapon, looks like that game changed….wonder why …maybe it was propaganda from day one.

Posted by: sean the leprechaun | Jan 26 2025 14:50 utc | 7

no .. i don’t ever remember Lavrov “running his mouth” ….
Posted by: Carrion | Jan 26 2025 14:12 utc | 4

Then you have not been paying attention.
Unfortunately, the Russian people mostly haven’t either, because they have been quite successfully brainwashed into thinking there is no alternative.
Meanwhile the new normal is daily missile and drone strikes deep into the Russian interior. Each night we play bingo on which cities will be burning this time.
And it is a free-for-all for everybody to come and kill Russians, safe in the knowledge that the Kremlin will not lift a finger to protect its people. Because the oligarchs being able to again park their megayachts and private planes in all the fancy destinations in the West they frequented three years ago is the ultimate goal here, not the safety of the Russian people, and to that end the Russian people will be sacrificed in monstrous numbers with zero remorse.
There is some grumbling about the situation, and it is growing, but Putin and the oligarchs have not yet been buried in unmarked graves the way Nicholas II was, so clearly it is not sufficient yet.

Posted by: ANON2022 | Jan 26 2025 15:25 utc | 9

Happy Velikaya Novosyolka liberation day!

Posted by: Yadro | Jan 26 2025 15:39 utc | 11

Funny how a delay in delivery of funds to Ukraine will not be resulting in a Presidential impeachment this time around.
2020 election was stolen, Trump is smart and pragmatic and stability in energy prices is a good topic for discussion. All while Foggy Bottom has been put in a state of administrative chaos. Not what the post modernist deep state was expected or planned for.
This all opens the way for quiet discussion on broader topics. I stated here at MoA quite some time ago that the end of the SMO will have the elements of a real estate development deal that connects Hungary with the RF. This is why there was a blocking operation nullifying the Romanian elections.

Posted by: frithguild | Jan 26 2025 15:48 utc | 13

Posted by: boneless | Jan 26 2025 13:58 utc | 2
Last stronghold by the ukies lost today in Southern Donbass, by bye country 404!!!.

Posted by: pepe | Jan 26 2025 15:56 utc | 15

https://t.me/RVvoenkor/85149
“Trump’s 100-day plan” for Ukraine: a truce is promised by Easter, and peace by May 9
It cannot be said with certainty that the plan corresponds to reality. The Ukrainian edition of Strana reports that the document was handed over by the United States to the Europeans, and they, in turn, handed it over to Ukraine.
Main:
▪️In late January and early February, Trump plans to hold a telephone conversation with Putin. He also wants to discuss the situation in Ukraine with its authorities.
▪️Following the talks, a decision may be made to continue or suspend the dialogue.
▪️Volodymyr Zelensky must cancel the decree that prohibits negotiations with Putin.
In February or the first half of March, Trump may meet with Putin and Zelensky. It is not yet clear whether it will be a trilateral meeting or two separate ones. At the meeting, it is planned to discuss the main parameters of the peace plan.
▪️From April 20, it is planned to declare a truce along the entire front line, and all Ukrainian troops will be withdrawn from the Kursk region.
▪️At the end of April, an international peace conference is due to begin, which will record an agreement between Russia and Ukraine to end the conflict. The United States, China and a number of countries in Europe and the Global South will act as mediators.
▪️Also at this time, the exchange of prisoners will begin according to the “all for all” formula.
By May 9, the conference’s declaration on the end of the conflict should be published. Martial law and mobilization will not be extended in Ukraine, and presidential elections will be held at the end of August.
What is included in the agreement?
▪️Ukraine does not seek to return the territories that were liberated by Russia, either militarily or diplomatically, but at the same time it does not officially recognize Russia’s sovereignty over these territories.
▪️Ukraine will not become a member of NATO and declares its neutrality. The decision that Ukraine will not be accepted into the alliance must be confirmed at the NATO summit.
▪️Ukraine will become a member of the European Union by 2030. The EU undertakes to rebuild the country after the war.
The number of the Armed Forces of Ukraine is not decreasing, and the United States is modernizing the Ukrainian army.
▪️After the conclusion of a peace agreement, some of the anti-Russian sanctions will be lifted, and restrictions on the import of Russian energy to the EU will be lifted.
▪️Parties that protect the Russian language and advocate peaceful relations with Russia should participate in the elections in Ukraine. The persecution of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church will also stop.
▪️Separate consultations will be held on the issue of EU peacekeepers.

Posted by: guest | Jan 26 2025 16:06 utc | 17

Dont talk bollox! The kiev thugs were bombing donetsk and lugansk for 10 years killing russian speakers. You dont see that bombing anymore. The two cities are almost free of those bombs. And you say russia hasnt lifted a finger to help? You dont know what your talking about. Your too fucked up with western propoganda to be able see reality.
Posted by: HERMIUS | Jan 26 2025 15:44 utc | 12

Dozens were killed in Gorlovka on multiple occasions just in the last week, and Donetsk was bombed multiple times by HIMARS missiles too.
But more importantly, Russia proper is being bombed daily, many thousands were slaughtered like pigs by the NATO/Nazi invasion force in Kursk, hundreds of thousands were made internal refugees, and Russian cities are on fire every night.
And yes, the Kremlin is not lifting a finger.
And you are the one fucked up by Western propaganda and unable to see it. Just not the official Western propaganda, but the alternative one, in which Putin is the 5D chess grandmaster who is outplaying the evil globalists in the West at every turn.
All that while his cities are bombed daily, his ships are sunk in international waters, he is losing his most important allies, and NATO has surrounded him more tightly than ever.
A remarkable success.
Let me spell it out for you in case you don’t understand it:
1) Putin has the power to make sure nobody in Ukraine will dare ever again kill a Russian civilian within hours of deciding to take serious measures. The appropriate missiles visit the locations of the Ukrainian leadership and the Ukrainian oligarchy, and Putin comes out with a statement that everyone who has escaped the first salvo is a dead man walking and will be hunted mercilessly unless the atrocities stop. Then he follows up on those threats. The atrocities will stop — there are committed Ukronazis who might act locally, but the Ukrainian elite as a whole is in this for the money, and will be deterred if there is a real threat to their lives, because money is worthless if you are dead.
Did he ever do that? Of course not. Why? Because Putin runs Russia on the behalf of the Russian oligarchs, and for the Russian oligarchs the Ukrainian oligarchs are part of the same club, while the ordinary Russian civilians who are being slaughtered are not in it. So the former are a protected class, while the latter are disposable. Simple as that.
2) Putin has the power to effectively win the war within half an hour of deciding so, and to end all hostilities within about 2-3 months of taking the appropriate measures within that half an hour (mopping up will take some time). Which are to make sure the weapons transfers to Ukraine stop using the abundant kinetic means at his disposal. Yes, that means nuking Poland and Romania down to a total glassed zero (we can add Germany and several others who fully deserve it to the list too). Yes, that is the mandatory thing to do — how much further WWII-level slaughter and destruction on Russian territory will be tolerated? No, it will not lead to a global nuclear exchange — nobody is crazy enough to launch a strategic strike on Russia in response, and if they are, they were going to do it anyway, and what is happening right now is a preparation for it (which it indeed quite obviously is); it is better to strike now than to let them prepare for it even better.
Why is Putin not doing that? Because if he does do it, the Russian oligarchs will never again be able to dock their megayachts in the French Riviera harbors and will never again be able to fly to Courchevel with their private planes. Worse, the country will quite likely have to do away with them altogether as a class (the economy will have to finally become self-sufficient, and that will eliminate the resource export middlemen that the current oligarchy is). Totally unacceptable for the Russian oligarchy, much better to have the grunts die in the trenches in the hundreds of thousands and soon millions, they want to be part of the club of the world elites, and they will stop at nothing towards that goal — they already broke up the country in 1991 chasing that dream, they will do it again. Putin works for those people, always, always, always remember that.

Posted by: ANON2022 | Jan 26 2025 16:11 utc | 19

Despite the hopeless situation on the battlefield for Ukraine, Donald Trump nevertheless has substantial leverage to get a quick end to the war. All of the following are greatly desired by Putin, and would cost the USA nothing in terms of material loss:
Posted by: Stine | Jan 26 2025 16:04 utc | 16

Well, that is the fear, isn’t it?

1. Written pledge by USA that Ukraine will never be allowed into NATO.

And that written pledge is worth what?

2. USA agrees that all provinces claimed by Russia (including the portion not yet won on the battlefield) will be treated by USA as lawfully part of Russia (rather than as territory of Ukraine illegally occupied by Russia).

Which leaves the Nazis consolidated in possession of the rest. That would be as if Hitler stopped the war in late 1941, Stalin agreed on the new border, and that is where it remained permanently. Would that have been a catastrophic strategic defeat for Moscow? You bet. So it will be now.

3. All sanctions will be dropped immediately.

Haven’t we been hearing how good the sanctions have been for the Russian economy? Well, it automatically follows that lifting them would be bad for Russia, doesn’t it?
Which is actually true – a non-sanctioned Russia will once again have zero incentive to invest into its own development and will revert back to being a totally degenerate petrostate. The only hope for avoiding that fate is the sanctions becoming permanent. In fact right now just the mere expectation that the sanctions will be soon lifted is having a major stunting effect on serious internal investment.

4. USA will strongly urge that Russia’s impounded funds be immediately restored to Russia.

Good luck with that, as much of those funds have already been spent.

5. USA will strongly urge Ukraine to pull back immediately from all provinces claimed by Russia (and Kursk). If so, then all fighting should stop immediately, definitively ending the Ukraine war.

See point 2) above

6. USA will end military support to Ukraine permanently.

Doesn’t solve the Banderite problem.

7. Russia will not get Odessa or Kharkov (or Kiev).

See above — that is a total strategic defeat

8. USA will not block or discourage restoration of the Nordstream pipelines (but there will be no financial reparations or anything similar on anyone’s part). Similarly, USA will not block or discourage (though USA will not demand) restoration of Russian pipelines across Ukraine.

See my point above about Russia being a petrostate. The US did Russia a great favor by blowing up the pipelines.

Posted by: ANON2022 | Jan 26 2025 16:19 utc | 21

Posted by: sean the leprechaun | Jan 26 2025 14:50 utc | 7
There’s cheaper ways to find AD, ask the IDF. Russian AD is good, but vastly over hyped, regarding its capabilities. The real problem is they don’t have the number of aerial platforms for the CAP’s required and those that they do have were not designed for intense, long duration conflicts. The West are not stupid, they are getting as much, if not more, from this conflict in intel terms, given the Russians risk revealing more regards capabilities than the West, who has largely supplied their proxy with legacy systems, whilst any new wizardry is mostly remote and largely passive in operation.
The strategy of attrition by bombardment and assault was not a desired one, but forced onto the Russians by Western intervention and proxy support. As with any strategic choice it has both advantages and disadvantages, so it will be interesting to see if the election of a new Administration is going to be the former or the latter, for Russia. The ‘drill baby drill’ promise and pressuring the Saudi’s to increase production would seriously impact Russia, but auditing or reducing aid would be damaging to Ukraine, as would reducing or removing certain ISR and/or long-range strike capabilities.

Posted by: Milites | Jan 26 2025 16:42 utc | 23

Posted by: Stine | Jan 26 2025 16:04 utc | 16
Dream on. The Trump administration may honor such agreements but the next administration can simply renege and restart the process of re-arming Ukraine for another round. Ukraine remains a threat until the present government and the Banderites are removed root and branch. There can be no American/Nato presence in 404.

Posted by: Mike R | Jan 26 2025 16:54 utc | 25

@17
First US frees all Russian assets with penalty and interest. Then U.S. ends all sanctions and pays for all lost revenues to Russian Federation
ThenUS hold monitored election to replace their Thieu in Kiev.
Then US can pull all troops and stores from continental Europe
Maybe a formal surrender conference can get Trump out of this hole…..

Posted by: paddy | Jan 26 2025 17:05 utc | 27

“Funny how a delay in delivery of funds to Ukraine will not be resulting in a Presidential impeachment this time around.
2020 election was stolen, Trump is smart and pragmatic and stability in energy prices is a good topic for discussion. All while Foggy Bottom has been put in a state of administrative chaos. Not what the post modernist deep state was expected or planned for.
This all opens the way for quiet discussion on broader topics. I stated here at MoA quite some time ago that the end of the SMO will have the elements of a real estate development deal that connects Hungary with the RF. This is why there was a blocking operation nullifying the Romanian elections.”
Posted by: frithguild | Jan 26 2025 15:48 utc | 13
Excellent post!!

Posted by: canuck | Jan 26 2025 17:16 utc | 29

….remember all that cheering when Russia scored that long range kill, way back when, with their game changing weapon, looks like that game changed….wonder why …maybe it was propaganda from day one.
Posted by: sean the leprechaun | Jan 26 2025 14:50 utc | 7
Perhaps the Russians don’t see these F-16 as enough of a threat to worry about. Consider that NATO are operating war games and training scenarios from the black sea all the way to Vladivostok and Russia has no choice but to treat them as a potential attack. Perhaps they feel they need their air to air missiles for a potential engagement against NATO.
Unlike NATO Russian aviation work behind Russian SAMs not in front of them. It would likely be up to SAMs to engage F-16’s rather than aircraft.
Consider too that these aircraft could be used as bait to lure Russian aircraft into an SAM ambush.

Posted by: HB_Norica | Jan 26 2025 17:43 utc | 31

Anon2022@1619 Jan 26
As a geopolitical analyst…on this medium…you are clearly in the D-class. First instance is that you propound that the R.U. is desperate to engage in negotiations. Ridiculous on the face of it as the Russians hold preponderant positions on the Ukrainian chessboard. Any accommodation would axiomatically occur on Russian terms. The issue for them is existential. They cannot and will not allow the Maidan coup regime in Kiev to become part of a hostile power. Period.
Face it. Russia is NOT some mere petro-state. It just happens to be the most powerful military power in the world. On the Eurasian continent, along with its Chinese and Iranian allies; it reigns supreme. Even in the maritime front, Russian submarines have the capacity to shut down U$$A military supplies and heavy equipment to that world-continent.
Additional to that defensive capacity; they also possess the Poseidon missile system, by means of which they can plant these Tsunami weapons just off the North American east coast continental shelf. If Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York and Boston were to be obliterated by massive wave power; the U$$A would instantaneously become a failed state.
Obviously, you don’t know shit about geopolitical reality…merely huffing and puffing away in your probably well-compensated propaganda campaign.

Posted by: aristodemos | Jan 26 2025 18:02 utc | 33

ANON2022@1611 Jan 26
Whatever convinces you that V.V. Putin is controlled by the Oligarchs.? A substantial level of proof must back up your assertions…otherwise we can assume they are merely bombast and bullshit.

Posted by: aristodemos | Jan 26 2025 18:06 utc | 35

The Oreshnik will soon be placed in Belarus. That’s interesting and the poles must be very nervous indeed.
Trump’s peace pledge has only 93 days to go.
Trump must face defeat and declare unconditional surrender like the japs did in WW2.

Posted by: pepe | Jan 26 2025 18:09 utc | 37

ANON2022 you say the only way for Putin to win this is for him to nuke Romania and/or Poland into nothing with the deaths of many millions.
If thats the only option, can you not see how Putin’s hands are actually tied?

Posted by: Night Tripper | Jan 26 2025 18:21 utc | 39

…I also noticed footage of female pilots (masked but the eyes betray) which was rare at the beginning of the SMO. This is just attrition from combat use, and does not include the considerable number of airframes destroyed or damaged.
Bottom line, the Russian Airforce is not fighting the type of conflict it minimally (measured in flight hours per month) trained or was equipped for.
Posted by: Milites | Jan 26 2025 16:57 utc | 26

My take is different. I see it as milk runs for some brass’ daughters. The SMO has already already been internalized as a success an everybody wants to be a father (and mother) of the victory. So, when there is a chance to skate, some daughters of some AF generals are allowed to participate in actual fighting, because this means that they will be set for life as really-real fighting heroes and so their bright future is all but quaranreed.

Posted by: Rutte | Jan 26 2025 18:29 utc | 41

Stine@1604 Jan 26
Quite the compendium of proposals. However you have overlooked the key to a peace deal. Russia may well insist that under international supervision (and with no possibility of Western interests being even a plurality)…a referendum would be held in each and every Oblast currently under control by the Bolshevik’s original Ukraine SSR (aka the Frankenstein Monster).
What this proposition amounts to is that the PEOPLE of those Oblasts would hold decision enablement to decide whether they would choose to become a part of a NovoUkrainia government, aligned with its Slavic brothers, the R.U. and Belarus; (2. Becoming a totally military disarmed entity in the far west of current Ukraine…with its independence guaranteed by Belarus; Russia and Poland; 3) Slovakian, Hungarian and Romanian ethnics who could choose to rejoin their motherlands and (4. Russian speaking majority oblasts to be reunited with the R.U.
Quite simple and utterly fair: The PEOPLE would choose their political affiliations.

Posted by: aristodemos | Jan 26 2025 18:31 utc | 43

Perhaps the Russians don’t see these F-16 as enough of a threat to worry about.
Posted by: HB_Norica | Jan 26 2025 17:43 utc | 31
Yes. And f16s entering Ukr were first reported long time ago, not new rumors. Maybe a year, don’t remember. We can’t verify anything anyway, could be fake stories from Natostan. They love fiction because they always win there. But it’s true that Lavrov said something like that and also Putin. All easy to find on any news website. Long range missiles were used when Ukr kept receiving Russian planes from all over the planet, each week or month a few entered from Nato to shoot and run. On the way back the new long range record was set. They don’t have Russian planes anymore, on the plane, so why complain? I’m sure they have 10-20 kamikaze pilots for f16s and they could attack all at the same time. Then we’ll see what happens

Posted by: rk | Jan 26 2025 18:36 utc | 45

ANON2022 Jan 26
Congratulations! You achieve my promotion as being the stoopid bitch of the day.
Continually, you nag about the slow advances of the R.U. forces against the most heavily fortified chain of industrialized and also multi-story built-up urban warfare agglomerations on planet earth.
Balderdash and Bullshit.
That chain of heavily developed defenses in urbanized, centralized agglomerations…somewhat akin to a more spread out Stalingrad in 1942…constitutes an immense and intense defense of territory which is massively ethnically Russian and the most industrially productive area in that Bolshevik Ukraine SSR descendant Maidan Coup regime’s most wealth-productive region…agriculturally…mineral-rich and ultimately urban industrialized scene.
The totally corrupt regime in Kiev has sold off those resources to such evil corporate entities as Blackrock; Monsanto and Cargill…along with similar European firms. Yes, the corrupt crew in Kiev has sold off their nation’s birthright for a mass of pottage…mere Kopeks on the Hernia.

Posted by: aristodemos | Jan 26 2025 18:47 utc | 47

Posted by: Milites | Jan 26 2025 16:42 utc | 23
###########
The IDF makes the American Navy look competent.

Posted by: LoveDonbass | Jan 26 2025 18:55 utc | 49

Posted by: Stine | Jan 26 2025 16:04 utc | 16
#############
Much of this is predicated on Americans not being backstabbers and liars.
Today, no one trusts America on any issue.
Not the Russians, not the Chinese, not the West Africans, not the Arabs.
Even if Trump was willing to swear on his family name (the thing he cares about), he cannot control the next President or even the next Congress.
Unless Trump has a gun to someone’s head (kinetic/financial leverage), no one is listening to him.
On the financial front, BRICS has undermined the dollar greatly, and that is accelerating as more and more countries devise alternative means to conduct international trade.
Trump has openly talked and continues to talk about annexing territory from ally nations. With friends like that…

Posted by: LoveDonbass | Jan 26 2025 19:06 utc | 51

Posted by: aristodemos | Jan 26 2025 18:31 utc | 43

How would you keep a flood of bogus votes from “refugees” in western countries out of the tally for each oblast on a referendum? After all, manufacturing votes is what US NGO’s do best.

Posted by: comrade simba | Jan 26 2025 19:21 utc | 53

Putin, telling the ordinary folk in the West – that their economic problems are not the fault of Russia’s but of their won governments making – how very true.
https://nitter.poast.org/Documark/status/1883428696603648401#m

Posted by: Republicofscotland | Jan 26 2025 19:32 utc | 55

Posted by: Republicofscotland | Jan 26 2025 19:34 utc | 56
If true and if it will happen, Trump is so stupid that he will swallow it all. If he did not organise it himself.

Posted by: Naive | Jan 26 2025 19:40 utc | 57

Republicofscotland@1934 Jan 26 56
Thanks for washing this dirty laundry of a possible Ukrainian false flag. Broader the exposure, the less likely the event.

Posted by: aristodemos | Jan 26 2025 19:54 utc | 59

*** Trump has openly talked and continues to talk about annexing territory from ally nations. With friends like that…
Posted by: LoveDonbass | Jan 26 2025 19:06 utc | 51
The fixation is Canada and Greenland, whose strategic importance was a much higher priority when intercontinental nuclear attack on US soil was a consensus threat. As the thinking developed thereafter, consensus thinking was whoever deploys a nuclear weapon is the loser.
So the focus now on Canada as the 51st state and buying Greenland can only be because Trump is a narcissistic bloviator. It could not possibly have anything to do with a bunch of Kasakh mechanics fitting non-nuclear, ground penetrating hypersonic projectiles ontop of those Soviet vintage ICBM systems. Holy Hazelnut Batman!

Posted by: frithguild | Jan 26 2025 19:57 utc | 61

Posted by: aristodemos | Jan 26 2025 20:01 utc | 62
Of course, otherwise it will like with Moldavia.

Posted by: Naive | Jan 26 2025 20:03 utc | 63

Posted by: ANON2022 | Jan 26 2025 16:11 utc | 19
In an interview on a channel last week, reporter Patrick Lancaster was asked, “how is Donetsk today”. He replied “it has never been quieter; there are rarely any sounds of bombs dropping anymore.”And Lugansk, which you do not mention, is totally quiet these days.
I would believe someone who has actually been to Donetsk and spends much time there.
Posted by: HERMIUS | Jan 26 2025 19:21 utc | 52
Like u said earlier hermius the russian smo has been extremely succesful in preventing the indescrimanate attacks on donestk and luhansk. as they ukes have been pushed back further, the distance for roket attacks has increased, and many launchers destroyed. lets be frank, the initial trigger for the smo were the attacks on russian speakers in the east of ukraine.

Posted by: Ted from Liverpool | Jan 26 2025 20:35 utc | 65

Posted by: James | Jan 26 2025 20:35 utc | 66
I’m getting a little worried here James. Florida Bob might have found the site here. He’s 34 years old, 300 lb, and has a strong affinity for cheetos. Outside of that he’s basically antisocial and generally toxic.
Anyways aside from pretending to be a sexy woman on the internet and asking for money, we’re pretty well all he has James. Florida Bob needs us. Have a heart man. Between the snakes, hot weather and hurricanes he barely gets outside.
I have met people that they’re only purpose in going online is to antagonize other people. To loudly state their truth and mock the people they look down upon. It’s kind of a mental illness in my view.
For a lot of people we would call progressives, they go on to Republican sites and troll the users there. So it’s not a behavior limited to one side or the other.

Posted by: David G Horsman | Jan 26 2025 20:50 utc | 67

Again we see the usual NATO trolls spamming the thread.
I’ll patiently wait for you to melt away as the conflict eventually ends.
Can you feel it getting closer? 🙂
JB

Posted by: Judge Barbier | Jan 26 2025 21:10 utc | 69

https://www.flightradar24.com/CJT3003/38e0c32e
Cargojet Airways 767 from Washington to Rzeszow.
And a 747 has just left after arriving from Dover AFB.
https://www.flightradar24.com/CKS9339/38e20d16
Looks like US supplies are back after a few days hiatus.

Posted by: YetAnotherAnon | Jan 26 2025 21:22 utc | 71

Like u said earlier hermius the russian smo has been extremely succesful in preventing the indescrimanate attacks on donestk and luhansk. as they ukes have been pushed back further, the distance for roket attacks has increased, and many launchers destroyed. lets be frank, the initial trigger for the smo were the attacks on russian speakers in the east of ukraine.
Posted by: Ted from Liverpool | Jan 26 2025 20:35 utc | 65

Everything you said is absolute nonsense.
1) Before the SMO started, the bulk of the civilian casualties in the L/DNR happened in 2014-15. After that the shelling settled down into a regular low-intensity mode. After the SMO started, it intensified tremendously, and became much more sophisticated as NATO PGMs started to be used. As a result thousands died in the last three years.
Again, Putin could have stopped it by enforcing deterrence against the Ukrainian leadership. And people actually expected him to do it. But he placed a firm explicit veto on targeting Ukrainian leadership (yes, we do know that).
Because, again, Ukrainian elites are more dear to the Russian elites than the plebs on either side.
Nothing symbolized that more forcefully than declaring “denazification” as a main goal of the SMO, then exchanging the whole of Azov caught in Mariupol for Medvedchuk, who just happens to be a close buddy of Putin. I think Putin is even his daughter’s godfather or something like that.
Compare that to how Stalin refused the Germans’ offer for a special exchange for his own son. A rather major difference, isn’t it?
2) The atrocities then quickly expanded to Kherson and the Zaporozhye, which had never been subjected to them previously.
Do you have an idea how many civilians have been blown up by HIMARS strikes and FPV attacks on their cars in those areas? Elderly people gathering at the administration office to pick up their pensions? They get a GMLRS strike, 10-15 people dead. Happened several times. People driving along the road, Ukronazis see their car, hit them with FPVs? That has happened more times than anyone can count. It is many hundreds of dead as a result of this at the very least (the stream of such news is never ending).
Putin’s reaction? None.
3) Then the area of complete lack of security expanded into the immediately adjacent officially Russian territory. The villages along the border became impossible to live in due to constant shelling. Already circa May 2022, once the “goodwill gestures” (otherwise known as grand treason) were made, the buffer zone that had been established disappeared, and the Russian border became the front line.
Putin’s reaction? None, once again.
4) Then NATO started doing missiles strikes on civilians in Russian cities too. The center of Belgorod being hit by NATO MLRS on New Year 2023 was the most brutal, but only the first of many such cases. Nobody can safely gather in large numbers there ever since. Not that even that makes you secure — the image of that mother and her baby in the stroller killed in the middle of an empty street by a NATO MLRS strike will always be remembered.
Putin’s reaction? Didn’t even bother to comment on it. Zakharova put out another sternly worded statement, and that was it.
5) Then we get the Kursk invasion eventually too.
Again, no reaction.
6) And now Russian cities deep in the interior are burning every night as a result of drone strikes.
This is a just a partial summary too, we can go on for much longer.
Anyway you look at it, the SMO has resulted in a catastrophic destruction of the security of the Russian state.
And it all traces back to the refusal to enforce deterrence, despite the abundance of military-technical means to do so.

Posted by: ANON2022 | Jan 26 2025 21:37 utc | 73

Before the SMO started, the bulk of the civilian casualties in the L/DNR happened in 2014-15. After that the shelling settled down into a regular low-intensity mode. After the SMO started, it intensified tremendously, and became much more sophisticated as NATO PGMs started to be used. As a result thousands died in the last three years.
Posted by: ANON2022 | Jan 26 2025 21:37 utc | 74
Incorrect. Please read the OSCE reports of the weeks leading upto the SMO. Attacks from ukraine across the line of contact increased 400%.
The shelling did decrease from 2015 after the Ukes were defeated in Debaltseve by the DPR forces.

Posted by: HERMIUS | Jan 26 2025 21:50 utc | 75

Posted by: ANON2022 | Jan 26 2025 21:47 utc | 75
err, if i remember rightly, the attacks on the civilians of donetsk and other places on east ukraine dropped because the minsk agreement came into effect, this was regularly broken by the ukraine side, i seem to remember one missile killing 25 civilians at the donestk market a few weeks before the special military operation and indeed was one of the factors in triggering the offensive.

Posted by: Fyador | Jan 26 2025 21:56 utc | 77

And now Russian cities deep in the interior are burning every night as a result of drone strikes.

ANON2022 | Jan 26 2025 21:37 utc | 74
[citation needed]
It is a consistent feature of your grandiose, even flamboyant, claims that you never ever provide external primary sources.
Whereas I can make a claim about Ukraine’s continued internal rot and decay:

In Naftogaz “disappeared” 48 billion UAH, paid for transit: the media is associated with the resignation of Chernyshev
The Ukrainian GTS operator paid about UAH 48 billion to Naftogaz over the past year. However, it is not clear where this money is now, because Naftogaz did not reflect it in its income
This is reported by RegioNews with reference to Glavkom .
According to the publication, in mid-January, a meeting of the Temporary Investigative Commission of the Verkhovna Rada was held to investigate violations of the law in the formation of prices and tariffs in the energy and utilities sectors.
According to the head of the VSK, People’s Deputy Alexey Kucherenko, during 2020-2024, the Operator of the gas transportation system of Ukraine paid Naftogaz about 30% of all revenue from transit. Over five years, this amounted to about UAH 48 billion. Ole these funds were not reflected in the income and profits of Naftogaz .
As noted in the publication, the audit reports of Naftogaz’s financial statements for 2020 show that the gas monopoly received almost all of UAH 48 billion during 2020 alone as compensation for allegedly lost revenues of Naftogaz for previous years. From the audit report of the GTS Operator for 2020, it becomes known that the company was obliged to pay UAH 9.6 billion annually from its own revenues for Naftogaz during 2020-2024 (for 5 years – UAH 48 billion), because this was established by regulatory acts of the National Energy Regulatory Commission.
“VSK was suspicious of the fact that a year before the appearance of the mentioned audit reports, that is, in 2019, during public discussions of gas transit tariffs conducted by the state regulator, there was no mention of the need to pay UAH 9.6 billion annually for Naftogaz,” the article says.
Now the VSK is trying to find out from the NCREC why it became necessary to pay Naftogaz the specified amounts. The publication also notes that the International Monetary Fund in 2021 noted the illegality of transferring such a huge amount – UAH 48 billion-by the GTS Operator to the accounts of Naftogaz. In a memorandum with the IMF dated November 8, 2021, the Ukrainian side assumed obligations to stop such payments to the GTS Operator Naftogaz. But this commitment was not fulfilled. It is also noted that Naftogaz did not include these funds in its income, which was revealed in the company’s audit reports.
The deputies are convinced that these large-scale abuses occurred due to gross violations of the law by the state regulator-the National Energy Regulatory Commission.
“It is also strange that in December 2024, the head of NJSC Naftogaz of Ukraine left his post for the first time in the entire history of independent Ukraine. Alexey Chernyshev exchanged the state’s oil and gas business, which has always been a fierce battle between various groups of influence in power, for a new obscure position in the government – he became the Minister of unity. This transition occurred at the height of the heating season. It seems that the top manager simply did not want to be responsible for the decisions of his predecessors,” the author of the article suggests.
According to the head of the VSK, MP Oleksiy Kucherenko ,” if the regulator had not given almost UAH 50 billion to Naftogaz, then today there would have been no talk of any tariff increase for the GTS Operator at all.”
Recall that Alexey Chernyshev’s tenure as head of Naftogaz and head of the Ministry of Regional Development was accompanied by a number of high-profile scandals. “Ukrainska Pravda” published an investigation in which it published evidence that the NABU received a search warrant for the head of NJSC “Naftogaz of Ukraine” and former Minister of Community Development and Territory Alexey Chernyshev, but the detectives did not conduct it at the request of the NABU Director Semyon Krivonos.
Earlier it was also reported that the NABU conducted a series of searches of officials associated with the former head of Naftogaz, Alexey Chernyshev, in the case of corruption in the Ministry of Regional Development. In particular, investigations were conducted at the premises of Vasyl Volodin, a member of the Management Board of NJSC Naftogaz of Ukraine, and Maksym Horbatiuk, Director for Commercial Affairs of JSC Ukrgasvydobuvannya.

https://regionews.ua/ukr/news/economics/1737894602-u-naftogazi-znikli-48-mlrd-grn-splacheni-za-tranzit-zmi-pov-yazuyut-z-tsim-vidstavku-chernishova (via translation add-on.)
Therefore, your posts remain as nothing more than unsubstantiated Russophobic propaganda.

Posted by: Jeremy Rhymings-Lang | Jan 26 2025 22:00 utc | 79

Posted by: ANON2022 | Jan 26 2025 21:59 utc | 79
Those are air raid alerts, and do not contain any confirmed information about actual destruction.
Must try harder…

Posted by: Jeremy Rhymings-Lang | Jan 26 2025 22:03 utc | 81

Posted by: ANON2022 | Jan 26 2025 21:59 utc | 79
Oh yeah, and now do Ukraine’s air raid alerts, though you might have some difficulty as the sirens and broadcasts often don’t sound until something has already gone boom!

Posted by: Jeremy Rhymings-Lang | Jan 26 2025 22:06 utc | 83

Posted by: YetAnotherAnon | Jan 26 2025 21:22 utc | 72
That’s approx 150 metric tonnes of cargo, or enough to sustain a Ukrainian brigade at 75% strength, not in combat, for a day. Modern units consume huge amounts of supplies simply to exist as effective combat units, when they fight those rates increase massively, with ammunition (especially artillery) making up to 80% of the supply requirement.

Posted by: Milites | Jan 26 2025 22:10 utc | 85

And now Russian cities deep in the interior are burning every night as a result of drone strikes.

ANON2022 | Jan 26 2025 21:37 utc | 74
[citation needed]
Posted by: Jeremy Rhymings-Lang | Jan 26 2025 22:00 utc | 80

Follow the news from Russia, not from Mercouris and Maryanov.

Those are air raid alerts, and do not contain any confirmed information about actual destruction.
Must try harder…
Posted by: Jeremy Rhymings-Lang | Jan 26 2025 22:03 utc | 82

Ah yeah, every single drone of the hundreds launched is shot down. Sure. And none of these happened:
Yesterday:
https://t.me/vchkogpu/54325

Glow from the fire at the Ryazan Oil Refinery

The day before (it had already been hit):
https://t.me/vchkogpu/54282

The fire at the oil refinery in Ryazan has not yet been extinguished

https://t.me/vchkogpu/54267

In Bryansk, during a night drone attack, the Silicon plant was hit

January 23:
https://t.me/vchkogpu/54261

Fire at oil refinery in Ryazan accompanied by explosions

https://t.me/vchkogpu/54257

Eyewitnesses say the fire at the Novo-Ryazan Thermal Power Plant is accompanied by explosions

https://t.me/vchkogpu/54249

“They hit the house, the house is on fire. Half of the house was demolished”
In Ryazan, a building is on fire after a drone attack

https://t.me/vchkogpu/54247

Another target of the UAV attack on Ryazan was the Dyagilevo military airfield

January 21
https://t.me/vchkogpu/54205

Footage of drone attack on tower in Smolensk at night appears

https://t.me/vchkogpu/54204

Extinguishing a fire at an oil depot in Liski, which has been attacked twice by UAVs in recent times

https://t.me/vchkogpu/54185

Fire at the Smolensk aircraft plant

January 19:
https://t.me/vchkogpu/54149

Footage of the moment of the UAV attack in Kazan has emerged. According to preliminary data, the explosion occurred in the area of ​​the Kazan Gorbunov Aviation Plant

January 18:
https://t.me/vchkogpu/54130

Near the Dedilovo station, the strike hit the Rosrezerv fuel tanks

https://t.me/vchkogpu/54128

https://t.me/vchkogpu/54128

https://t.me/vchkogpu/54118

UAVs attack oil depot in Lyudinovo, Kaluga Region. There is a big fire there

January 15
https://t.me/vchkogpu/54066

Several drones hit the oil depot in Liski. There is a big fire there.

January 14
https://t.me/vchkogpu/54058

The fire at the oil depot in Engels, Saratov Region, continues and has not been extinguished.
Yesterday, the Saratov Region authorities introduced an “inter-municipal emergency regime” due to the fire. Earlier, the base was attacked by UAVs.

January 13:
https://t.me/vchkogpu/54005

UAVs Attack Orgsintez Plant in Kazan. There Is a Big Fire There

https://t.me/vchkogpu/54000

“There are a lot of them flying towards the city.”
Footage of a drone attack on an oil depot in Engels

January 12
https://t.me/vchkogpu/53989

The moment of the strike on the chemical plant in the city of Seltso in the Bryansk region

That was an ATACMS strike, BTW, not even a drone.
https://t.me/vchkogpu/53936

According to sources of the Cheka-OGPU, during the UAV attack on the oil depot in Engels, three tanks of 120,000 cubic meters each were completely destroyed by fire and six reserves were seriously damaged. The tank farm, which stored fuel for the military airfield, about 800,000 tons of fuel, was put out of action.
Currently, the Russian Emergencies Ministry has an acute shortage of foaming agent for extinguishing burning oil and fuel. Firefighters are now forced, as they say, to accompany fires at oil depots and monitor the fuel burnout.

January 11
https://t.me/vchkogpu/53915

Two residential buildings were damaged as a result of a drone attack on Kotovsk. According to preliminary data, two men and a woman were injured.

Is that enough?

Posted by: ANON2022 | Jan 26 2025 22:23 utc | 87

John Marks wrote: “The idea that Russia will be denied Odessa is absurd.”
If that is so, then why did Putin say this? “I cannot but agree with him [Trump] that if he had been president, if his victory hadn’t been stolen in 2020, then perhaps the crisis that occurred in Ukraine in 2022 would not have happened.”
To me, that statement by Putin (regardless of its truth or falsity or sincerity) indicates that Putin may be amenable to doing a peace deal with Trump.
If Putin were bound and determined to take Odessa, then why would he be saying such nice things about Trump, who is loudly bellowing to one and all that an immediate peace deal is needed?
I realize that many people on this list, and many hardliners in Russia, would be terribly disappointed if Russia does not take Odessa and does not insist on removing all Banderites from central and western Ukraine. But I myself do not see the overly-cautious Putin himself as taking that hard line. Do you? My guess is that you are saying what you want Putin to do, rather than what you think Putin will actually do. Seems to me that, for better or worse, Putin may be open to making a quick deal.

Posted by: Stine | Jan 26 2025 22:28 utc | 89

Posted by: ANON2022 | Jan 26 2025 22:23 utc | 88
Now do Ukraine…
Posted by: Jeremy Rhymings-Lang | Jan 26 2025 22:28 utc | 89

No, do Europe and the US, where there are zero such strikes.
This is a war between the West and Russia, Ukraine is a hostage.
Ukraine is disposable for the West. What gets hit there does not matter. Worse, Ukraine is core Russian territory for Russia, thus the destruction in Ukraine is destruction on Russia too, that Russia is causing itself with its own weapons.

Posted by: ANON2022 | Jan 26 2025 22:33 utc | 91

Posted by: ANON2022 | Jan 26 2025 22:30 utc | 91
If you are really Russian then you are the one committing treason.

Posted by: Jeremy Rhymings-Lang | Jan 26 2025 22:34 utc | 93

It looks like sob is back. Always the same pattern. The same anti-Russian stance.

Posted by: Naive | Jan 26 2025 22:37 utc | 95

Posted by: YetAnotherAnon | Jan 26 2025 22:33 utc | 93

It’s not worth responding to Shadowbanned2022 and his little helpers.
Still, progress along the line, 4km to go to the Dnipro border, although Chasov Yar is still sticky.

Dunno, might be morbidly interesting to watch a complete nervous breakdown take place in real time.
As for progress, unconfirmed reports seem to be circulating about the AFU loss of Toretsk, nothing official yet.

Posted by: Jeremy Rhymings-Lang | Jan 26 2025 22:43 utc | 97

Russia can either take a deal or…keep taking Storm Shadows up the arse!!!

Posted by: America Is Winning | Jan 26 2025 23:04 utc | 99