The Kharkiv area: Russia shelled Kharkiv, killing a 13 year old boy, wounding his 15 year old sister, and killing a couple in their 60s who were waiting for public transport.
Russia tried to advance through Pytomnyk, which is a bit of a sprawling town, but they were repelled (1)
The Slovyansk area: Russia made their normal daily attacks into Krasnopillya (2), Dolyna (3), and Bohorodychne (4), and all were repelled.
The Siversk area: Mapping this area is difficult. There are a lot of attacks going on from both Russian and Ukrainian forces (I have decided not to map many of the Ukrainian attacks out of an abundance of caution). For this reason, I have made much of the region a gray area.
Similarly, I am not sure where exactly some of the Russian attacks are coming from. For example, the attack on Hryhorivka, are the Russians moving along the river, or more inland? Does Ukraine control the river area? I am not sure.
I have read that Russia controls the area along the river, which is how I have mapped it. I have seen a lot of evidence that Ukraine controls the southern part of Bilohorivka, which I have left as a gray area on the map.
There have been attacks towards Serebryanka, which obviously have to pass through the gray area somewhere, and also attacks towards Verkhnokamyanske. On top of all of this, Ukraine claims there are two towns in Luhansk oblast that Russia has failed to capture.
We know Bilohorivka is one, but which is the other? There are two options: Zolotarivka and Verkhnokamyanka. I have seen evidence of Ukrainian forces in Zolotarivka, so I have decided to map this town as contested. It could be the other, or maybe neither are contested.
Russians have not yet captured Bilohorivka, and they are heavily shelling the area with Grad MLRS and s300 anti-aircraft missiles (A). Russians tried to attack Hryhorivka, but they were repelled (5). There is ongoing fighting in Verkhnokamyanske (6).
There are rumors that Russia captured Ivano-Darivka (7), but I have seen no evidence to support it. I believe fighting is ongoing. Similarly, there are rumors that Russia has pushed through Spirne (8), but I have also seen contrary evidence that their attacks are being stifled.
Ukrainian forces have abandoned Berestove after roughly 59 days of fighting (9). After a while every single structure is destroyed and you run out of things to defend, at which point Ukraine decides to pull back to another town where the process starts anew.
However, Russia still has not been able to capture the Berestove (10) due to liberal application of Ukrainian artillery.
The Bakhmut area: There is ongoing fighting in the outskirts of Soledar (11).
There is heavy ongoing fighting around Pokrovske (12,13), and some of the lesser Russian sources are claiming the town is captured, although the better sources have not made any such claim.
Similarly, Russia is pushing very hard to attack Vesela Dolyna (14) and Vershyna (15). And the lesser Russian sources claim they have been captured. I have not seen evidence that Russia has even reached the towns yet and I believe they are still fighting in the outskirts.
Russia very much wants to capture these three towns so they can begin attacking Bakhmut. Russia’s goal is to push Ukraine back to their Slovyansk/Kramatorsk/Kostyantynivka defensive line as fast as possible. Every day that passes, Ukraine gets stronger and Russia gets weaker.
There is ongoing fighting around the Vuhlehirske power plant (16) and Novoluhanske (17) and while these positions are holding off for the moment, you could see them collapse in the near future due to what is going on north of them.
The New York/Avdiivka area: Russia isn’t having much luck attacking Kamyanka, so they decided to try a recon mission 2-3km north near Novoselivka Druha, but the recon failed and they were repulsed (18).
South of Donetsk: Russia tried to attack towards Novomykhailivka again today, and they were repelled (19).
Yesterday I read that Ukraine had attacked out of Vuhledar towards Mykilske (20), but that the attack was destroyed.
I could not find confirmation, and I found it unlikely such an attack would be destroyed so I didn’t mention it. Today there is a report that Russia tried to attack Mykilske but were repelled (21). Perhaps Ukraine captured Mykilske. I will leave it marked as contested for now.
The Kherson area: Russia seems convinced that Ukraine will attempt an attack from Murakhivka (the giant blue arrow). Ukraine is heavily shelling the Russian positions in this general area, and Russia is returning the favor, including air strikes on Murakhivka itself.
Ukraine shelled the Antonovskiy Bridge again today. There is debate over the weapon being used, whether it is HIMARS or the gps guided Excalibur artillery shells. Either way, the bridge is badly damaged and it is either impassable or close to being so.
I want to start by saying I don’t have access to official documents or meetings, so I’m piecing together their motivations based on what I observe and logical reasoning. Keep that in mind as you read on.
This year, Russia's goals are threefold. First, to capture the eastern bank of the Dnipro River. Second, to capture Kostyantynivka. Third, to capture Slovyansk.
Each of these goals has necessary steps. To capture the bank in Zaporizhzhia, you must first capture Orikhiv. To capture Slovyansk, you must first capture Lyman. You could argue that to capture Kostyantynivka, you must first capture Chasiv Yar.
These goals are very ambitious and, honestly, impossible to fully achieve. So let’s think of them as aspirations and focus instead on how close Russia might get to reaching them.
Ukraine launched several counterattacks in the Verbove and Ternove areas of Zaporizhzhia. They were quite successful, pushing Russia out of several settlements and possibly capturing some. This also threatened Russia’s main supply route to the west. Because of this, Russia has to do two things: divert resources from their main attack to stabilize the area and try to recapture this ground to keep pushing west toward Orikhiv. Meanwhile, Ukraine gains time to strengthen defenses, plan their strategy, and prepare for more counterattacks, something Russia worries about given their timeline.
This has already delayed Russia’s offensive by months, and it will take many more weeks for them to regain their previous position.
Recently, Russia tried an armored assault on Orikhiv, which failed badly (A). They also tried to advance through Mala Tokmachka (B) before, but that failed too. A direct attack on Orikhiv is unlikely to succeed without heavy losses, so Russia wants to avoid it unless they have no choice. Still, based on past experience, they might end up having to take the town this way.
The military analysis of Iran has been the absolute worst military analysis I have ever seen in my entire life.
There have been times where I listen to some "expert" where almost every word they say in the entire interview is factually wrong. Some of these people are so wrong that I feel like you could have a big box of words and reach in and draw them randomly and it be more factual.
To prove my point, I just asked a LLM to analyze the form of a normal military interview on cable news and using strictly randomly generated words and no access to the actual news please give me a report on what's going on in Ian (unironically, this is what LLMs are good at, probably, just lying about shit):::
From an operational standpoint, the expanding American strike corridor may complicate Iran’s layered coastal defenses, which could scatter missile batteries inland.
At the tactical level, the Iranian drone screen might disrupt a forward U.S. maneuver package, which could stall momentum along the maritime axis.
From the broader battlefield geometry, the concentrated American carrier posture may pressure Iran’s southern command network, which could trigger rapid repositioning of defensive units.
Right now on the ground, the reinforced Iranian coastal belt might absorb the initial U.S. probing attacks, which could slow the opening phase of the campaign.
The main thing that any educated person needs to keep in mind at all times is that realpolitik is fake and everyone who believes in it is typically universally wrong on every single word they ever say.
It is especially funny because realpolitik people are almost never experts in any domain, and they get their info from aggregators. And those aggregators know the realpolitik people use them, and as such present info in a way most likely to influence the realpolitik.
They end up just being unwitting amplifiers of misinformation.
Frankly I think the fastest way to end the war in Ukraine is not by sending tanks or by idiotic peace proposals. The fastest way is to set up factories across europe to produce 1000-2000 long range strike drones per day, and launch hundreds if not thousands of drones into Russia every single day until the country collapses. If they think sending 500 drones into Ukraine is a threat, see how they respond when 3000 drones fly into Russia.
With this many drones you can hammer every single factory, powerplant, substation, oil refinery, and mine in russia relentlessly.
Europe had a million drone program, to supply 1 million fpv drones. Fuck fpv drones. Have a 1 million drone program to supply 1 million strike drones. That's your million drones.
The "stupid westerners, sanctions do not work, we smuggle goods in illegally. muahaha, Russia unstoppable" people tickle me. Sanctions are not for stopping goods entirely, they are for increasing friction because the resources you spend smuggling are resources not spent growing
People fundamentally don't understand the purpose of a sanction. Sanctions are not to stop the war now, although they do damage Russia, the real goal of a sanction is long term economic damage to permanently shrink their economic growth on the timescale of decades.
The sanction is basically saying "okay, you're a threat to me today, and maybe I can't do much about it now, but I will shrink you and outgrow you so in 50-100 years you are no longer a threat to me at all". It is a long term play.
The Russians claim they shoot down Ukrainian aircraft the moment the missile leaves the tube, but we're supposed to believe they shot down two Black Hawks on Tuesday and only announced it after Ukraine leaked Black Hawk footage on Friday. These Black Hawks join the 650 F-16s and 450,000 M777s Russia has 'destroyed.'
GUYS. I AM GOING TO POST A VIDEO WHERE I WILL BLUR THE UNIT LOGOS TO SHIT SO NOBODY CAN TELL I STOLE THE VIDEOS FROM THE ARCHIVE AND THEN POST IT TO THE INTERNET SAYING I KILLED ALL THE SPECIAL FORCES
And then media outlets and super smart think tank people all over the world will believe me for some reason and then everyone will be like omg all the special forces died.