re: Latest Updates: Russia-Ukraine Conflict

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Use of the corruption indices is objective and not unfair when talking about Ukrainian corruption.
But is also not unfair to note that they are an Eastern European country that was part of the USSR until 1991 and continued to be strong armed by Russia thereafter.
They have made a lot of progress in self gov’t in a short time, but nobody should be surprised they have a baseline near the bottom, where Russia resides on these indices.

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Russian milbloggers have provided enough geolocated footage and textual reports to confirm that Ukrainian forces have established positions in east (left) bank Kherson Oblast as of April 22 though not at what scale or with what intentions. Geolocated footage published by a Russian milblogger on April 22 shows that Ukrainian forces have established positions on the Dnipro River bank north of Oleshky (7km southwest of Kherson City) and advanced up to the northern outskirts of the settlement on the E97 highway, as well as west of Dachi (10km south of Kherson City).[1] This footage also indicates that Russian forces may not control islands in the Kinka and Chaika rivers less than half a kilometer north of the geolocated Ukrainian positions near the Antonivsky Bridge. Russian milbloggers claimed on April 20 and 22 that Ukrainian forces have maintained positions in east bank Kherson Oblast for weeks, established stable supply lines to these positions, and regularly conduct sorties in the area—all indicating a lack of Russian control over the area.[2] Another milblogger’s battle map claimed that Russian forces do not control some Dnipro River delta islands southwest of Kherson City as of April 22, suggesting possible Ukrainian advances on these islands.[3] Some milbloggers complained that the slow rate of Russian artillery fire due to the over-centralization of the Russian military command allowed Ukrainian forces to land on the east bank.[4] Russian forces may be prioritizing maintaining defenses in urban areas such as Oleshky and Nova Kakhovka, leaving the islands in the Dnipro River delta unmanned. The extent and intent of these Ukrainian positions remain unclear, as does Ukraine’s ability and willingness to maintain sustained positions in this area. ISW is recoding territory on the east bank of the Dnipro River to Ukrainian-held only now because this is the first time ISW has observed reliable geolocated imagery of Ukrainian positions on the east bank along with multi-sourced Russian reports of an enduring Ukrainian presence there.

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I’ve been waiting for this Shiv chick to get naked

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On the topic of a river crossing in force, check out the start of today's ISW report:

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So before people go crazy. No there is no cross-Dnipro offensive. There is no bridge head. There are scattered reports of UA forces having positions on the left bank of the Dnipro. This has happened since they liberated Kherson. It's a roadless swamp.

The only way to get in and out of the area is with boats. You can possibly walk too, but there are no roads. It's gonna look like roads when you check google, but they are animated to enhance paths you can travel.

This is the same as when people claimed Ukraine had a bridgehead months ago. Complete garbage.

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I really want to nuance this. Taking up and actually controlling positions requires much more than infantry units that (temporarily or not, because that cannot be deduced from the footage) were seen on the left bank. This just looks like reconnaissance operations where Ukraine takes advantage of less Russian presence.

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Prigozhin commented on the matter of a wounded Wagner POW being executed by Ukrainian soldiers in Bakhmut by stating that Wagner PMC won't break international humanitarian law by harming Ukrainian POWs, which is why there will be none going forward.

No good deed, etc. Some got lucky, some will not. twitter.com/RWApodcast/sta…

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The Chinese Ambassador to France, Lu Shaye stated that the countries of the former USSR "do not have an effective status in international law, since there is no international agreement that would specify their status as sovereign countries."

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