- An additional link was added this morning 🙂
Still trying to keep up with Ukraine. Where fighting continues it’s being claimed Russia launched quite a large attack, some say the biggest attack ever, a couple of nights ago.
Russia has fired more than 500 aerial weapons at Ukraine overnight, in a barrage that Kyiv described as the biggest air attack so far of the three-year war.
But let’s cut to the chase- Where am I going with this latest post? Just mentioning that the situation for Ukraine is worsening, as Russia continues to advance. Lugansk is fully under Russian control.
We’ll start out and Russia Analytical Report @ Russia Matters
“Some NATO leaders fear that the situation on [Ukraine’s] frontline could deteriorate seriously by this autumn,” with the country reaching “a breaking point within six months,” Gideon Rachman warns in his latest Financial Times column, without defining what that point could look like.1 “Without a clear vision of victory—or at least of an end to the war—a sense of hopelessness risks descending over the country,” Rachman writes, pointing to the Ukrainian military’s shortages of air defense systems capable of intercepting ballistic missiles as well as to the combat personnel shortages. Even NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte “could struggle to keep smiling by the end of the year,” Rachman concludes in his column, which was published as Western press reported that Russian forces advanced within 12 miles from the capital of northern Ukrainian region of Sumy though the pace of the Russian advance has remained slow: estimated total of 42 square miles in the past week.2
There is other interesting reading at the Russia Matters link too
Financial Times- Nato’s summit cannot disguise Ukraine’s plight
To read the piece we must head over to archive.ph
Below are the last 4 paragraphs
But there is little belief among European policymakers that Russia is in any mood to agree a ceasefire. One well-placed official thinks that Russia’s central goal now is to capture Odesa — which Vladimir Putin regards as a historically Russian city. Without Odesa, Ukraine would lose access to its main port.
A group of former European leaders — including Carl Bildt of Sweden and Sanna Marin of Finland — visited Ukraine recently and picked up on the deteriorating mood. They wrote afterwards that “while Ukrainians will never stop resisting, without more military support, Ukraine can lose more territory. More cities might be captured.” Off the record, some western officials are even bleaker, warning of a risk of “catastrophic failure”, if the Ukrainian military is stretched to breaking point — and does not receive a significant increase in military and financial aid from its western allies.
Of course, wars are unpredictable and moods can shift. Some in the west argue that Ukraine can hold its own over the coming year. They claim that, despite enormous efforts and losses, Russia has only succeeded in capturing an additional 0.25 per cent of Ukrainian territory over the past year. The optimists argue that Ukrainians’ expertise in drone warfare has made it impossible for large groups of Russian troops to advance en masse. They also argue that — even if Russia breaks through Ukrainian lines — it lacks the mechanised divisions to capitalise on the achievement.
The received wisdom has been proved wrong many times before in this war. But if the growing pessimism among those following the Ukraine war closely is justified, then any feel-good sentiments generated by the Nato summit may soon disappear. Nato’s secretary-general is known for his upbeat nature and permanent smile. But even Rutte could struggle to keep smiling by the end of the year.
Lastly, Mark Rutte is an embarrassment- to himself. His nation.
To anyone with a backbone- But NATO IS the US and groveling to the US is par for the course in that bloc.