Sounds like a big Dunkirk moment for Russia.
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what’s funny is that most ussian servicemen couldn’t understand the dunkirk reference.
I’ve recently binged a few of this guy’s videos and am impressed. https://www.youtube.com/c/VladVexler
He was born in Russia, left for Isreal at about 10 y/o, then went on to get an MPhil at Oxford and a PhD in political philosophy. He apparently doesn’t work much due to some medical issues, but he’s got an incisive understanding of Russia and how Russians see the world, and has some of the best takes on Putin and Russian ideology and how it relates to the war. Well worth watching some of his vids.
As an explainer of Russia, he seems in the realm of Timothy Snyder, Stephen Kotkin, or Mark Galeotti.
his unit were handed shovels and ordered to dig trenches throughout the night.
Their digging, which they took turns to do because of the lack of available shovels, was abruptly interrupted in the early hours of the next day as Ukrainian artillery lit up the sky and shells started raining down on Agafonov and his unit.
“A Ukrainian drone first flew over us, and after that their artillery started to pound us for hours and hours, nonstop,” Agafonov, who survived the shelling, told the Guardian in a phone interview on Monday.
“I saw men being ripped apart in front of me, most of our unit is gone, destroyed. It was hell,” he said, adding that his unit’s commanders abandoned them just before the shelling started.
According to Agafonov’s estimates, only 130 draftees out of the 570 survived the Ukrainian attack, which would make it the deadliest known incident involving conscripts since the start of the mobilisation drive at the end of September.
“And many who survived are losing their minds after what happened. No one wants to go back,” Agafonov said.
Related
Unlike the Kremlin, Russia’s Defense Ministry “has remained remarkably tight-lipped about milblogger critiques of Russian failures throughout the war in Ukraine,” the Institute for the Study of War think tank reported Monday night. The ministry’s public response indicates that the military bloggers now have “considerable leverage” over Russia’s war narrative “and additionally suggests that the situation in Pavlivka is dire enough to warrant a response.”
a “wagner” line around mariupol? why would they think it will come to defending mariupol?
Russian theater outdid themselves, staging an immersive play, in which the audience is “held hostage” by terrorists wearing ukranian uniforms, and a hostage is bound and executed on stage. it’s supposed to be based on Donbass 2014-22. totally not dehumanizing tho.
https://mobile.twitter.com/ilya_shepelin/status/1590047281012953088
The part where Putin shows up and pumps the theater full of gas to kill the audience didn’t need to be in there though
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There will be corresponding consternation in Moscow.
https://twitter.com/WarMonitor3/status/1590361666537271296
https://twitter.com/wartranslated/status/1590360828364337152
https://twitter.com/wartranslated/status/1590368333727424512
Hummm…
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18 days later…
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Well that was a month ago …
This wasn’t some sudden thing. This withdrawal has been going on for some time, with obvious preparation.
Usually I try not to think the world revolves around US politics, but Russians pinning hopes on a GOP win has been circulating for awhile.
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AFU spox have basically said, we’ll believe it when we see it. the shoigu/surovikin meeting looks practically staged for the cameras. i don’t think they really counted on AFU rushing into kherson as soon as they heard it, but there could be some tactical deception as well. anything that exacts a toll on the ukrainian forces is in play. eg some trap that could kill a group of vehicles or heavy weaponry or personnel. surovikin would cream himself if he took out just one himars