Every day, more civilians die; Russian rockets are mostly knocked down before they hit anything – but some get where they’re going. The Ukrainians are stalled in their offensive for a variety of reasons. The biggest is that the Russians have had more than a year to dig in, and you can bet your ass that’s exactly what they’ve done, six defensive lines deep across 30 km. Ground the Ukrainians need to traverse to retake their country is often mined, and the Russian guns are heard all the time because they’re entrenched everywhere. The Ukrainians have lost a lot of soldiers, and a breakthrough point along that eastern line has not made itself known. They’ve also lost a horrifying number of expensive new tanks, enough that Putin was mocking them. It’s been a meat grinder and I think the Ukrainians need to rethink their strategy. The situation is not assisted by internal dissension. Vitaly Klitschko, the mayor of Kyiv, is openly feuding with Zelenskyy about local government issues (mostly, this is a gross oversimplification) and from anything I’ve been able to read both men are being idiots litigating resource issues in wartime in the fucking press. But yeah, I think Zelenskyy’s going to try to drive Klitschko out of office for what, somehow being a collaborator? that seems to be how to gets people out of wherever they’re thwarting him and I have no notion how that’s supposed to work democracy wise, Klitschko’s a multi-term mayor in wartime.
Having blown up a dam, Putin is now plotting to blow up Zaporizhia’s nuclear power plant. Zelenskyy’s issued a warning to the world.
