re: Latest Updates: Russia-Ukraine Conflict

quote:

---

When the USSR broke up in 89/90 NATO should have dissolved. Had it done so we wouldn’t have this conflict happening today.

---

Interesting note from this Washington Post story on South Korea's expanding military export industry:

quote:

---

A senior U.S. defense official said the structure of the American ammunition deal — the United States is already shipping the Ukrainians thousands of rounds of artillery shells every month — helps Seoul deal with both internal politics and diplomatic relations.

“It’s extraordinarily touchy for the South Koreans to donate ammo to Ukraine,” the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

---

This would mean that our purchases of South Korean 155mm shells are for our own stocks. In other words, those Korean shells enabled us to send some of our 155mm shells to Ukraine and keep our inventory the same, but we aren't going to be able to continue to buy unlimited Korean shells and sell them to Ukraine.

Hmm: LINK

quote:

---

In November 2022, US CBP encountered 5507 Russian migrants (a 110% increase, second highest increase) along the US-Mexico border. They are now within the top 10 nationalities attempting to enter the US through Mexico.

---

quote:

---

Can we use seized assets to…. BUILD THE WALL?

---

You need to understand this, the wall isn’t being built because of a lack of funds. The Dems do not want a wall.

From @DefMon3, who has proven to be one of the war's most reliable OSINT analysts:

quote:

---

The AFU have cleared or almost cleared Optyne according to a video I geolocated earlier today.

---

He notes that he does not want to share the video right now, as it reveals current Ukrainian positions.

Here's the map of Bakhmut from @War_Mapper that he posted four hours ago:



You can see that the town of Optyne is a small southern suburb of Bakhmut. Russia completely took the town on November 20th.

In the last week or so, Ukraine has pushed Russia out, which is similar to what's happened in the area east and northeast of Bakhmut. It was just on Thursday that Ukraine pushed Russia out of the eastern residential suburbs of Bakhmut and back into the industrial area.

For the first time since the Battle of Bakhmut began, I am confident that Ukraine has the advantage and is taking the initiative.

What has changed? The obvious answer is the "monstrous shell hunger" that Murz reported. I've now seen a couple of other reports from Ukrainian sources indicating that Russia's artillery bombardment has lessened recently.

It's too soon to be overconfident. Perhaps a big new batch of shells will arrive for Russian troops from North Korea or something. Maybe the problem is simply related to short-term logistics issues. But Occam's Razor says that Russia is quickly running out of artillery shells.

OK, so this is a fascinating story. Many of the "smoking accidents" that have been happening inside Russia are reportedly the work of CIA-run teams. These teams are set up with agents of a European ally, so that the CIA has plausible deniability (no actual American agents are inside Russia as a part of this).

LINK

Any article such as this would have to rely on anonymous sources, so of course, people can say that this article is made up, but Jack Murphy is former Green Beret-turned-journalist, and he's obviously putting his reputation on the line with this.

My guess is that the European ally he refers to in the article is Poland, but that's just a guess.

quote:

---

In the last week or so, Ukraine has pushed Russia out, which is similar to what's happened in the area east and northeast of Bakhmut.

---

The northeast was where they were pushing yesterday. The Ukes liberated the area I marked in red 24 hours ago which is getting near the E40 road and starting to wrap around the Russian positions noted on the map which are the last Russian positions in Bakmut proper. It is an sparsely populated industrial area and it looks like the Russian stronghold is around a drywall plant. If they can root them out of there they should be able to take all of Bakmut.

quote:

---

Is Opytne fully in Ukrainian control or does it still have a Russian presence?

---

I don't think that's clear yet. Someone else, please correct me if I'm wrong.

quote:

---

I don’t even know the size of this force. Is it a division? A Corps? An entire tank army? Who knows?

---

My guess would be that our satellite intelligence (and other sources) has a pretty good handle on this... Which ( and again I am guessing...) would provide some explanation of why the Ukes don't seem to be too worried about it...

ETA:
Just saw the following Post ...

quote:

---

OBTUSE1: One thing is for sure, the US intelligence knows therefore Ukraine knows the exact amount of troops and materials being massed on the Belarus border. If there is a credible threat Ukraine will be aware of it in time to meet the threat if they are indeed capable of it.

---