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Bill Roggio Profile picture
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Mar 25 • 3 tweets • 3 min read
1) I thought the title and ensuing quotes by "blindsided" and shocked western officials that the Taliban would stop girls from going to school was parody by @TheOnion or @TheBabylonBee. Nope, it was published by @AP.

wbir.com/article/news/n…
@TheOnion @TheBabylonBee @AP 2) “We were blindsided," said Sam Mort, UNICEF’s communications chief in Afghanistan. “All the messages, all the actions that had been taking place led us to believe that schools were opening ..."
@TheOnion @TheBabylonBee @AP 3) "... and as we understand it, that’s what our counterparts in the Ministry of Education believed as well.”

So after the Taliban lied about negotiations, joining the government, etc., you actually believed they would be honest about this?

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More from @billroggio

Bill Roggio Profile picture
Mar 26
1) This is an unpopular view (an argument I made from the beginning) that gets you branded as pro-Putin, but it needs to be understood. The inability to discuss the warfighting without the basest level of emotionalism is blinding us to what is happening.
newsweek.com/putins-bombers…
2) "If we merely convince ourselves that Russia is bombing indiscriminately, or [that] it is failing to inflict more harm because its personnel are not up to the task or because it is technically inept, then we are not seeing the real conflict."
3) "As of the past weekend, in 24 days of conflict, Russia has flown some 1,400 strike sorties and delivered almost 1,000 missiles (by contrast, the United States flew more sorties and delivered more weapons in the first day of the 2003 Iraq war)."
Read 8 tweets
Bill Roggio Profile picture
Mar 25
1) The Ukrainian counteroffensive around Kiev & the fog of war. @nytimes: "... signs of actual, on the ground progress were elusive. Ukrainian forces have been unable to demonstrate they control villages or towns previously held by the Russian army." nytimes.com/live/2022/03/2…
2) The town of Irpin: "The deputy police chief of Irpin, Oleksandr Bogai, said Russian soldiers were still in the town, occupying several districts and fighting Ukrainian forces. That is essentially the same situation that has persisted for nearly the entire month of the war."
3) "In Makariv, another battleground town to the west of Kyiv that Ukrainian officials claimed to have recaptured this week, the fighting was also ongoing, Vadym Tokar, the mayor, said in a telephone interview."
Read 8 tweets
Bill Roggio Profile picture
Mar 24
1) @SpencerGuard created "The Mini-Manual for the
Urban Defender." A must read for those interested in how to prepare for and execute an urban defense. @SpencerGuard puts this in terms that anyone can understand. Kudos.

img1.wsimg.com/blobby/go/a3aa…
2) Two weeks ago, I wrote a quick thread on the impact on civilians once the decision is made to defend cities. Once you go down that, all bets are off and civilian casualties will skyrocket. The Mini-Manual for the Urban Defender shows why this is true.
3) Once you understand how an urban defense is established and maintained, you will see why attackers often will make little distinction between military and civilian targets. This is because the defenders are using every building, street, alley, etc. as a fighting position.
Read 4 tweets
Bill Roggio Profile picture
Mar 23
1) France's Ministry of Armed Forces has been putting out daily assessments of the fighting in Ukraine (thanks for the heads up, @GrayConnolly).

defense.gouv.fr/ukraine-point-…
2) The Ministry of Armed Forces highlights 5 areas: Kiev, Kharkiv, Dnipro (the French rightly see this as a strategic point, as I have noted in the past), Mariupol, and Mykolaiv. I will summarize France's analysis of each area.
3) Kiev: The Russians have not completed the encirclement, the Ukrainians flooded the Irpin River to slow the Russians [smart move], and the Ukrainians have retaken the town of Makariv to the west of Kiev [nice win for the Ukrainians].
Read 12 tweets
Bill Roggio Profile picture
Mar 22
1) Today's must read, by @TaskandPurpose's Andrew Milburn:
"Overconfidence may obscure for the Ukrainians one salient fact about this conflict: Time is not on their side.

taskandpurpose.com/news/russian-m…
2) Milburn notes that the Russians are adapting their tactics: "The Russians are already adapting, and by doing so are narrowing the Ukrainians’ tactical edge."
3) "The one-sided culling of Russian armored columns that characterized the opening days of the war, and kept YouTube subscribers around the world happy, are a thing of the past."
Read 7 tweets
Bill Roggio Profile picture
Mar 20
1) Interesting information on the control of the skies above Ukraine: @nytimes: "While experts have been puzzled by Russia’s failure to gain complete control over the Ukrainian skies, they are certainly dominant ..."
nytimes.com/2022/03/19/wor…
2) "... --- Russian surface-to-air missile capabilities can reach anywhere in Ukraine, according to military analysts. Russia is believed to fly some 200 sorties per day while Ukraine flies five to 10."
3) In the first week of the war, it is not clear how many Russian strikes hit their targets, but Piotr Lukasiewicz, an analyst at Polityka Insight, a Warsaw-based research institute, said that they did serious damage to Ukraine’s command and control centers."
Read 12 tweets

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