Europe Under Attack
Today is 6 months since Russia invaded Ukraine, and I'm bringing my map back. The frontlines have remained remarkably static since Ukraine began fielding HIMARS in early July, with almost no Russian gains since. Yellow outline shows changes since Jun 25.
Almost all of the Russian gains mapped since Jun 25th are from the week immediately after Ukrainian forces withdrew from Lysychansk, and since the fielding of HIMARS these gains have almost ground to a halt. Although Ukraine has found it difficult to recapture territory as well.
In May, Mark Galeotti predicted that September would be the month that all of Russia's incompetence would start coming back to bite them. The question is whether HIMARS systems have accelerated some of the military aspects of what Mark mentioned in May.
To honour the 6-month anniversary and Ukraine's Independence Day, my office talked to Ukraine's ambassador to Australia @AmbVasyl, who shared his insights, please check it out here
This thread shows the impact of China's recent heatwave and drought.
Starting with these satellite images of Dongting Lake (洞庭湖) showing the situation over the last month compared to 2020.
All using Sentinel-2 data processed on Google Earth Engine.
Luoxingdun Island (落星墩) in Poyang Lake (鄱阳湖)
As highlighted in this tweet
(Excuse the artifacts on the 2022 image, a month's composite isn't always completely clear)
The West of Poyang lake, around Xianyuanxu Wetland Park (下院圩湿地公园). This one is particularly shocking, keep in mind that these two images both show the same time of year, just the difference of the drought.
THREAD Ive previously mostly ignored Jaq's bad-faith complaints, not wanting to boost them, but these specific claims are worth explaining. Of the photos shared, 5+ are not of the detention facility, 3 are from after it desecuritised and the rest are close-ups/dont show the site.
First some background. Following a massive crackdown in early 2017 in Xinjiang, detaining 100,000s of Uyghurs for ordinary acts of faith and culture, authorities in Xinjiang faced a problem. They had detained more people than they had room for in their existing prisons.
Accordingly, in the first quarter of 2017, >100 public buildings, such as schools, hospitals and government offices were jerry-rigged into detention facilities while larger, purpose-built facilities were being constructed.
Live-fire military exercises announced by Chinese state media reveal that China plans to send its military forces into both Taiwan's sovereign territorial waters and its internal waters (where Taiwan has as many rights as its land). Gravely escalatory and dangerous steps.
These announced military exercises reach further into Taiwan's Internal Waters than the Third Strait Crisis' exercises crossed into Taiwan's Territorial Waters.
The PLA is planning to conduct live-fire military exercises within the sovereign territorial waters of Taiwan (blue line). These are the most provocative moves by China in decades & would qualify for the UN definition of state aggression.
Unambiguously escalatory & in the wrong.
Not only is it inherently escalatory & deliberately engaging in brinksmanship, but it also forces other states into acting that way. The US must make clear that Chinese live-fire into Taiwan's territory will not be accepted, even by placing navy assets in its territorial waters.
Beyond Taiwan's territorial waters, China's published maps show that they plan to conduct military operations within Taiwan's Internal Waters (purple -approx line) in two areas. This is as close as you can get without landing on the beaches and is completely unacceptable.
I've been seeing this claim going around. I'd caution against considering it confirmed as there are a number of other things this disturbed ground could be, and there is nothing to my eye that specifically looks like mass graves here. They're a possibility, but not the only one.
Specifically, I disagree with the characterisation of the 'before' image as the disturbances being open. The lack of shadows visible makes me think these are surface disturbances and not dug-out.
They also look very uneven and irregular for graves, though it's possible they've been hastily dug and aren't as neat. But they could also be something as simple as spill-piles for nearby renovations, garden plots for prisoners, early foundation laying or many other things.
I've built up quite a collection of pdf books and reports. To do something more productive than having and not reading them, I thought I might pick some at random and share interesting photos.
Starting with:
Alone on Guadalcanal - A Coastwatcher's Story
Street Without Joy - The French Debacle in Indochina by Bernard B. Fall, chronicling France's doomed attempts to regain control over Vietnam after its liberation from Japan.
Operation Typhoon - Hitler's March on Moscow, October 1941 by @DavidStahel. 1/2