The Kharkiv area had lots of shelling and minor fighting along the front lines.
In the Izyum area, Russia attacked in the direction of Karnaukhivka from Petropillya (1). They made no progress and returned to their original positions. Russians claim there is fighting in the outskirts of Kopyanky, which suggests a Ukrainian attack (2).
The Siversk area had lots of shelling.
The fighting in Soledar was primarily in the east (3). Ukraine is heavily shelling the Knauf Gips plant. The concentration of fire suggests Russia has not moved much in the past 17 days. Maybe one or two blocks at most.
There is ongoing fighting in Bakhmutske (4).
Russia is attacking Bakhmut (5). I marked the three primary Ukrainian fortified positions with the blue gatehouse icons.
There is ongoing fighting in Kodema (6). Russia has not made any progress.
Ukraine repelled a Russian attack in the direction of Nevelske (7). There is ongoing fighting in Marinka (8).
Zaporizhzhia is home to many artillery duels and a whole lot of shelling. The region had three significant explosions. From left to right: Novobohdanivka (Russian HQ), Chernhivka, and Verkhnii Tokmak Pershyi.
Locals noted that Russia lost equipment in Chernhivka and Verkhnii Tokmak Pershyi and say Russians withdrew some equipment in the aftermath. Ukrainian partisans identified the targets and relayed them to Ukrainian forces.
In Berdyansk, Oleksandr Kolesnikov, a Russian collaborator, was assassinated by a car bomb. Russians were quick to call this a terrorist attack but had no comment about what happened to Ihor Poznyanskyi.
Poznyanskyi is a Russian collaborator from Pidlyman in Kharkiv oblast. He has not been seen or heard from since the Russians put a bag over his head, put him in the back of a vehicle, and drove away.
Speaking of terrorism, Russian artillery shelled Kamyanka, a town under their occupation in Zaporizhzhia, from Vershyna, around 20km to the east. The shelling destroyed several buildings.
In the Kherson/Mykolaiv area, Russian forces have moved a few kilometers toward Pervomaiske from Blahodatne (9). I do not think Russia has a realistic chance of capturing Pervomaiske, but apparently, they might be interested in trying.
Today, Ukraine hit the Antonovskyi Bridge (A) and the Kakhovka bridge (B) with HIMARS. Many Russians died on the Kahovka bridge in this attack. Both bridges are now impassable, although Russia will continue attempts to repair them.
Ukraine also declared fire control over the Darivka bridge (C).
Tonight, Ukraine flew drones into Novoozern and Sevastopol. They may have flown more drones in the time it took to write this. Ukraine appears to be mapping Russia's air defense network and its response times in preparation for future attacks.
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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.
Guys I took my division and charged them into combat and while we lost 50% of our armored vehicles and 45% of our infantry are dead, and several of our HQs were destroyed and most of our best officers are dead, we captured a village where 200 once lived so we’re winning the war.
Tomorrow we will send our next division to assault the next village. That one had a population of 1200. Its actually considered a huge city, when you think about it. If we can capture that, we will send our third division to capture the hamlet behind it.