news from kherson are going to get progressively better for ukraine for or in about a week. the situation is the converse of mariupol. except, azov performed a heroic task by drawing and killing troops away from the battle of donbass for as long as they did, giving valuable time for mobilization and western weapons to arrive. russian army is doing nothing of the sort in kherson. to claim that they will hunker down in an industrial area and wait to be liberated is a bit laughable. the only reason they held kherson is to hold a referendum. good luck with that
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After the grain deal I feel like a negotiated outcome is pretty likely, sooner than later
Everything I’ve seen is that Ukraine will not negotiate until at least large chunks of land are returned. The population won’t accept a settlement
Maybe its hopium for me, but I don’t know how Russia ever holds Kherson since ukraine can blow up both bridges at will.
Losing kherson is a GG moment for Russia, stalingrad level defeat for Russians.
Yeah, I don’t anticipate a settlement any time soon. I don’t see a cessation until Russia has been getting its ass kicked for long enough to accept that it’s fucked, Ukraine has been getting its ass kicked for long enough to accept that it’s fucked, or for a stalemate to have gone on long enough that both sides are willing to give up. The only one of those three that seems like it could happen this year is the first. Russia abandoned its quick victory plan and seems to be unable to make substantial, rapid progress at this point, and Ukraine isn’t going to accept a stalemate for a long ass time.
The major uncertainty is just how much stuff Russia has in Kherson vs. how much Ukraine can bring to bear on it without sacrificing the northern or eastern fronts, and to what extent the Russians are willing to hold out. Given the current advances and the tweet above, it seems like Ukraine has enough stuff, but maybe not? It also seems unlikely that the Russians are going to hold out to the extent of the Ukrainians in Mariupol, but maybe? There’s also the question of the extent to which the Ukrainians are willing to raze their own city to get the Russians, which is clearly much less than the extent that the Russians are willing to raze Ukrainian cities.
Kherson is not cut off, there are two more bridges. A rail bridge near Kherson and a road bridge further east.
The problem with destroying the bridges is you preclude counter attacking past the Dnipro anytime soon. The river is a half mile wide.
it’s more like a quarter mile in places where the armies would care about, but yeah, ukraine is doing just enough to leave the possibility to continue past kherson. it is conceivable to cut off the land bridge if they continue pushing to the sea of azov. which is possible, lherson oblast’ is open steppe for miles. russians would need an even wider defensive line
Whatever happened to the whole “Ukraine is running out of ammunition” problem? Was that solved?
Putin just wiped his ass with that agreement.
Man, with the economies of like every country in Southeast Asia currently imploding because of the grain issue you’d think China might have some incentive to lean on Russia a little harder here. Sri Lanka’s collapse is just the first.
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They also denied they did this. Those Kalibr missiles could have been fired by anyone.
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#Emmanueldontdoit
https://twitter.com/chessninja/status/1550858839620214785?t=YRNofsTBMt_dKZ0y3G7OQA&s=19
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Who wants to head to Mykolaiv for some IRL Werewolf?
https://twitter.com/TelegraphWorld/status/1550887221808578564
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Why would China care about those economies collapsing? Refugees aren’t trying to get into China and it gives China a chance to buy even more land/resources at bargain prices.
I’d bet China sells them a good bit of stuff.
Singapore yeah, but Sri Lanka is for opening factories, using cheaper labor and circumventing tariffs. If China wants to help Sri Lanka they can do it more directly by suspending payments on debt. Same goes for the IMF.
eta: too late, Sri Lanka defaulted.
Sri Lanka owes a ton of money to China. The Ukraine war is what pushed Sri Lanka over the edge. Five years ago, before Covid & Ukraine, Sri Lanka was a pretty roaring success story and a decent investment for foreign capital. It had a booming tourism industry.
They had been doing relatively well in the 2010’s, but that was mostly rebuilding after a 25 year civil war.