The Russo-Ukrainian War of 2021-present has entered a new phase. In the wake of the Ukraine’s hybrid/asymmetric attack on Russia’s strategic bomber fleet (a.k.a., Operation Spiderweb), Russia is getting its revenge in the smartest way possible. Russia has begun a massive, month-long air/missile/drone campaign that is systematically attacking command and control centers all over the country. The latest was a Russian X-22 missile attack on a former drilling rig disguised as a seaborne command and control center. A Tu-22M3 Backfire bomber launched the X-22 cruise missile where it reached Mach 4 and then dove into the command center and obliterated it. There are dozens of videos out now on reputable sites indicating this campaign is ongoing and will continue.
Couple that withpolling data coming out of the Ukraine where 73.2 percent of Ukrainians polled believe the conflict should end along the current line of control, and it just gets worse.
This is very, very bad news for Ukraine. This might not be the beginning of the end, but it is the end of the middle.
The site for reasonably unbiased updates is Military TV. But, viewer beware, this is uncensored warfare.
UPDATE: At the St. Petersburg Economic Forum, which I watched in Russian — the translators often miss subtle points. Putin was talking about how Russia always respected Ukraine’s right to independence, and he gave an enormous amount of context in his answers, but, when it came to discussing Russia’s army moving into new regions in relation to Ukraine’s independence, he did so in the Russian past perfect aspect. Russian verbs have tense. But they also have aspect, meaning is an action fully completed, or temporarily or ongoing, etc. Putins use of the past perfect aspect signifies to me two things: 1) Putin has come around to the necessity of destroying the Zelensky regime, and the will of the Ukrainian people, and; 2) Following on logically, peace will not be negotiated; it willl be dictated, and there is fuck all Ukraine can do now except suffer for the deceitful sins of the West.
UPDATE 2: Medvedev just announced that Ukraine will not be allowed to enter the EU. At one time, Russia was fine with Ukrainian EU membership — so long as it remained militarily neutral, like Austria. In Medvedev owns words (apologies in advance for the terrible translation): “Brussels today is a real enemy of Russia. In such a distorted form, the European Union is no less a threat to us than the North Atlantic Alliance. Therefore, the complacent slogan, “Join anywhere but NATO” must be adjusted. Thus, the so-called Ukraine in the EU is a danger for our country. There are two ways to stop this danger: A) Either the EU itself must realize that it does not need the Kiev quasi-state, in principle, or a certainly preferable; B) There is simply no one to join the EU.”
Medvedev is always the one who lets the trial balloon loose, so it is only a matter of time until Putin makes options A and B into official Russian policy.