Russian military operation in Ukraine #65

A Russian blogger's view about frontline drones.

#Western_propaganda

#Decline_of_Western_society

#Lies_Russophobe_about_Russia (and about North Korea, too)

Russian hacker PalachPro single-handedly takes down NASAMS SAM manufacturer website.

As a result of hacking the website of the Norwegian company Kongsberg, a hacker got hold of a supply contract. According to the document, Norway will transfer ten new NASAMS air defense systems to Ukraine in 2025 and $66 million for the development of anti-drone systems.
- FRWL reports

More targets

Paris to deliver Mirage 2000-5 fighters to Kyiv by the end of Q1 2025, — French Foreign Minister

“French Mirages will be in the Ukrainian sky in the near future” - as promised, by the end of the first quarter, said head Jean-Noël Barrot on air at Sud Radio.

Earlier it was reported that 6 fighters would be transferred at once.

- RVvoenkor

oh no, not the Le Me 262

Russian hacker PalachPro single-handedly takes down NASAMS SAM manufacturer website.

Hope he also changed the delivery address

Paris to deliver Mirage 2000-5 fighters to Kyiv by the end of Q1 2025, — French Foreign Minister

Just in time for the Victory parade

JohninMK wrote:“French Mirages will be in the Ukrainian sky in the near future” - as promised, by the end of the first quarter, said head Jean-Noël Barrot on air at Sud Radio

French Mirages will be in the Ukrainian mud a little while later....



These froggie aerial targets are well named.  It is consistent with French military power, ie that of an illusion, visible at a distance but fades into non-existence when you close with them.

In any case, who will fly these things?  We heard long winded speeches about how Godlike & Omnipotent NATO would train Ukrops to pilot the wunderwaffe F-16s and sweep the barbarian Ruskie yurt dwellers from the steppes, but no-one is suggesting such for these latest offerings.  Seems to me that they are avoiding the issue as the obvious answer is that sheep-dipped French military will be given the unappealing job of fighting Russia and dying for the Glory of the 5.5th Republic.

Retards are gonna retard I suppose...

We'll see, Putin has let himself be fooled many times. During Maidan, during Minsk I and then Minsk II, Istanbul...Time will tell.

People do indeed have problems to understand those who are much smarter than themselves...

Another death toll we will never know is strikes on bunkers filled with officers Inc NATO officers, we will never get to know but on the flip side I haven't heard of such strikes on bunkers in Russia or Donbass filled with Russian officers? Unless anyone can recall? Russia has the air advantage, missile and drone advantage , artillery advantage, to name a few. Ukraine only has  got western Intel, bags of western money, and meat shield advantages. They are losing the war and their energy infrastructure is in ruins. They (the west) even admitted it would take 70yrs+ to rebuilt Ukraine. Yet to hear anything like that about Russia and the west's sanctions not only failed but actually ended up backfiring on their own economies. Russia has Ukraine and the west on the back foot  and Putin should hold out for the best deal he can get, the west haven't got the advantage. Trump might threaten sanctions blah blah but they will fail like the last sanctions package which was the biggest against any country. But at the end of the day trump won't want to spend more billions of dollars funding Ukraine if the war continues without an agreement and Putin will know this.

So the point now for the Kremlin is to somehow freeze the negotiation process initiated by DT, who happens to have up till now shown nothing of the worth of his chips up inside his sleeve.
Nothing really worth for VVP to engage in dead-end negotiations.
Meanwhile, DT is controversially advancing in other fronts, so Moscow should put those negotiations on hold before precipitation.

We'll see, Putin has let himself be fooled many times. During Maidan, during Minsk I and then Minsk II, Istanbul...Time will tell.

They lied to his face and at the time he was not aware that that was happening.

Now he knows they will lie about anything and everything.

There are upwards of 90K Russian dead soldiers... that is what he is thinking about and why a freeze is not an option.

He is not in a position where he needs an out or an end of any kind.

He knows what he wants and he knows he doesn't have to accept anything less.

He believed that the West would respect the agreements, would not arm Ukraine and prepare it for a forceful takeover of Donbas. Putin himself said that he was fooled.

They openly lied to his face.

Now he knows they are liars do you think he will blindly believe anything they say?

BTW they lied to his face. He authorised the development and production of Zircon and Hazelnut and Thunderbird and Avangard and they are currently working on stealth bombers and supersonic strategic cruise missile carriers and a new Russian space station... he has not been doing nothing... he is not ready to surrender.

The question is if he even considered taking Donbas at that moment.
And we do know that no.
Donbas was to stay as a part of Ukraine till the Stambul negotiation failure.

Crimea voted to be Russian in 2014... and several times before that. These other four Ukrainian regions voted to join the Russian Federation after the Istanbul agreement failed. He didn't want to speak for those regions and seize or annex them, he was talking about their autonomous return to Kiev rule in the Istanbul agreements that Zelensky tore up. Now these regions have voted to become Russian and Russia has voted to accept them as part of the Russian Federation... Putin is not allowed, under Russian law, to give these regions back to Kiev or allow them to become neutral unless that is what they want.

It will be the same for the rest of Ukraine... they will get a vote... something the west has never done before... allowed the people living there to decide unless they knew the vote was going to go the way they wanted.

Then he officially accepted Donbas and the other 3 regions into the borders of Russia, so logically entering into any negotiations means withdrawing Ukrainian troops from these regions.

If it takes much longer to discuss this stuff they might not have to withdraw at all... especially if they have already collapsed.

Unless they accept it in its current version, but that would be a pretty bad solution for Russia.

If Russia is not happy with the terms or agreement they don't have to sign or agree to anything at all... they can just keep fighting.

On the other hand, even taking over these regions means more months of laborious and slow fighting, if not years.

Kiev is not going to last years, and the Ukrainian army is not going to last years.

In general, it is a stalemate at this stage.

No it isn't. Ukraine is currently losing thousands of men a day and also losing territory every day and as it continues to move back the positions it is moving to are not wel designed or heavily fortified and soon it will be open terrain... not good to fight in the winter in open flat terrain when there are no leaves and the enemy has thermal imagers...

The West already knows perfectly well that it will not reverse the fate of this war.

The US is no longer interested in throwing good money after bad and when the west actually steals Russian assets as opposed to freezing them, Russia can take action in response which means they can take 300 billion worth of western assets and resources in Russia... including the new parts of Russia that the west really really wanted...

Blackrock bought up all that farmland and those lithium mines and those industrial centres that Russian forces currently occupy... western seizure of Russian assets frees Russias hand to return the favour and take resources from western companies... they should actually be very happy the west is this stupid.

Russia is grinding up the Ukrainian army... eventually it will collapse and then they can move in and create stability while referendums are organised.

I remember an interview with Putin after 2014 when he mentioned that the Russian government had commissioned a secret survey of Crimea and the Donbas about joining the Russian Federation. At that time Crimea was strongly in favor however it was only around 14% in the Donbas.

Which is both a good indication that taking the land would not have been a good idea and might have turned a few of the locals against them, but also the effect of almost 10 years of bombing and shelling by your own government can do to the nationalism of people... they went from Ukrainians to Russians.

The question is open, what about Odessa and the coast? Taking over the coast and reaching the border with Romania would make the rest of Ukraine no longer attractive to the West.

The west would do it in a heartbeat in their position, but whether Russia would do it I don't think so.

However the collapse of the Ukrainian military would require Russian forces to advance and collect up and make safe the weapons of war.

Also there is going to be enormous amounts of UXO that needs to be dealt with... people look at the rebuilding of Russian held areas but it is more than just clearing away the shit and putting new buildings up... the place has to be made safe first...

When given a choice to remain part of the Ukraine or some neutral new country or join Russia it will be interesting what they choose.

It will also be up to them what they choose, but up to Russia what choices they actually get.

They have to take into account that after the end of the conflict, NATO will sooner or later install itself in the rest of Ukraine anyway.

Any agreement Russia agrees to will make that unlikely. The closest they could come to that is if some regions on the border with Polish and Hungarian and other populations choose to rejoin the home country and that is allowed as an option.

Of course there is no assurance those countries will accept those territories anyway.

Retards are gonna retard I suppose...

You are missing the point... if you do not offer sir an after dinner mint (Mirage fighter aircraft that is rather old and obsolete now) then one cannot add it to the bill because sir is about to explode...

Mr Creosote is Zelensky....

So the point now for the Kremlin is to somehow freeze the negotiation process initiated by DT,

Freeze is the wrong word, Putin can continue to say he is open to discussions but first Zelensky will have to roll back that law of his prohibiting him from peace negotiations with Putin in power. Then of course he will point out that Zelenskys term in office has expired so he is not the legitimate president of the Ukraine so his signature is worthless on any document he might end up signing (not that it was ever worth anything anyway)...

By the time they hold elections the Ukraine army will have folded... there is zero chance of any ceasefire while this is happening and the Russian forces continue forward...

Zelensky's fate and the "quiet division" of Ukraine, by Gleb Prostakov, business analyst, for VZGLYAD. 01.29.2025.

The question of a military victory over Russia, as well as the return of lost territories, is no longer on the agenda either in Ukraine or in the sober-minded West. And the future political organization of the country is directly linked to what fate Ukraine will face in the upcoming negotiations between the US and Russia.

Donald Trump's rise to power fundamentally changes the domestic political situation for Ukraine. The country is moving to the periphery of the interests of the United States, and even on the agenda of the expected Russian-American negotiations, Ukraine is an important, but far from the only point, but only one of them along with nuclear disarmament, a new security system in Europe, etc.

Judging by the current rhetoric of Moscow and Washington, the subject of negotiations on Ukraine is not a cessation of hostilities and a ceasefire, but a comprehensive agreement between the great powers on the delimitation of spheres of influence. The goal of the Trump administration is to leave Ukraine while saving face - so that it does not look like the flight of American troops from Afghanistan under Biden. Care for Ukraine will be entrusted entirely to Europe, which simply will not be able to handle this burden without the United States and will be forced to negotiate with Moscow.

Such an agreement a priori includes the question of the future organization of Ukraine's political life, which has lost its subjectivity and no longer belongs to itself. These circumstances create serious problems for Volodymyr Zelensky, a president whose term of office has expired. Zelensky no longer places hopes on selling Trump the idea of ​​"peace through strength", and along with it, himself as its conductor on earth.

Zelensky's trip to Davos suggests that he is betting on zero, namely, on an anti-Trump coalition of leading EU countries and the UK. A weak bet plays out as long as Macron, Scholz and Starmer remain in power. But all three, apparently, do not have much time left. And in the big foreign circle of transnational elites, Zelensky risks ending up as a chip flying off the tree during a forest clearing.

In light of these changes, a defrosting has begun to take place inside Ukraine, where political life has been halted for the past three years by the SBU and right-wing activists. The expectation of an end to the war and the subsequent elections has forced both those who called themselves the opposition until 2022 and Zelensky's former allies, who have found no place for themselves at the emptying trough, to raise their heads.

The decline in international support for Ukraine and the fall of Zelensky's rating below 50% (from a peak of 80% at the beginning of the SVO) within Ukraine are triggering processes of power change, in which representatives of various groups of the Ukrainian elite are rushing to participate. The president is being increasingly criticized by former head of state Petro Poroshenko. Former comrades-in-arms are also hardly shy in their expressions.

For example, the former speaker of the Ukrainian parliament and former head of the Servant of the People party, Dmytro Razumkov, who has already openly accused Zelensky of lying about the real state of affairs with the conscription of men aged 18-25. Or the television "Kashpirovsky" Oleksiy Arestovych, who fell out of the circle of Bankova's people and who openly denounces not only his former employer, but also the "holy Maidan", which allegedly became the cause of all of Ukraine's troubles.

The appearance on air of former MP Yevgeny Murayev caused another bout of repression on Bankova, which decided to arrest or impose sanctions on a group of MPs, political scientists and journalists. Which some perceived as persecution and a threat, while others - as free PR from the weakening government.

A potential "black swan" for Zelensky remains former commander-in-chief Valeriy Zaluzhny, now the Ukrainian ambassador to the UK. In hypothetical presidential ratings, Zaluzhny easily beats Zelensky. But Zaluzhny's figure is perceived more through the prism of London's interests than Washington's, which reduces the chances of his further active advancement.

In this situation, Zelensky is preparing to go all in. The red line for him is the announcement of a draft for young people aged 18-25 who were unlucky enough to leave the country. Until now, Zelensky has actively resisted this decision, citing insufficient military assistance from the West: why draft people who have nothing to arm. Zelensky's goal was to draw European countries into a direct confrontation with the Russian Federation, and in the best case, the United States.

But with the arrival of Trump, the disposition has changed. The blocking of large-scale arms supplies, the inertial flow of which is still pouring into Ukraine, threatens the collapse of the front. The existing arms reserves will last for several months of war. Zelensky has these months to figure out how to retain power. And the conscription reform, which will allow for the voluntary-compulsory involvement of guys under 25 in combat, gives Zelensky a last chance.

The infusion of tens of thousands of young people into the army, according to Bankova, will stop the months-long advance of the Russian Armed Forces. Zelensky will try to show with his successes that “peace through force” is possible, and that the Russian onslaught has choked. The downside of such decisions will be the threat of a potential rebellion: sending young people of student age to the front could be the last straw for the population of Ukraine, embittered by the incessant capture of conscripts on the streets.

This entire rapidly boiling Ukrainian cauldron has an important external contour. The question of a military victory over Russia, as well as the return of lost territories, is no longer on the agenda either in Ukraine or in the sober-minded West. And the future political organization of the country is directly tied to what fate Ukraine will face in the upcoming negotiations between the US and Russia.

For Trump, a peaceful settlement is always a conversation about money. Recently, the special envoy of the American president, Keith Kellogg, announced the possible supply of weapons to Ukraine in exchange for the arrested gold and foreign exchange reserves of the Russian Federation. In other words, Trump wants the already completed and future arms supplies to be paid for not with “valuables,” but with real money, preferably someone else’s. The problem is that the expropriation of Russian gold and foreign exchange reserves (most of which, by the way, are in the EU) directly contradicts Trump’s pre-election communications on strengthening the position of the dollar on the world stage.

In any case, the focus is on money and the economy. Currently, half of Ukraine's budget revenues come from subsidies from Western countries. Loans have gradually replaced donor aid, and the mechanisms for repaying this money are unclear. The three most important pillars of the Ukrainian economy - metallurgy, agriculture and the chemical industry - are in deep decline. And the Ukrainian energy sector survives only due to the seemingly endless capacity of Ukrainian nuclear power plants built in Soviet times.

Some clusters of the Ukrainian economy continue to function. But overall, it is not viable without external support. A separate problem is the workforce. According to polls , every fifth Ukrainian would like to leave the country as soon as martial law is lifted and the borders open. The end of the war in the absence of sustainable peace is fraught with a new, probably unprecedented wave of emigration from Ukraine.

The fate of the buffer zone – the part of the former Ukraine that will remain after the end of the SVO – is the key topic of the Ukrainian negotiating track. Its restoration and organization of the investment flow is possible only under the condition of Kyiv’s political and military neutrality. That very preservation of statehood that Ukraine can present as a “victory”.

The main burden of restoration will fall on Russia and the European Union. The new normal for the buffer part of Ukraine may be the abolition of discriminatory laws regarding the Russian language and historical memory, the elimination of the concept of "aggressor country" from legislation and derivative regulations that hinder investment activity. This is the basic condition for Russia's participation in the restoration of, if not a loyal, then a neutral territory.

A separate question: what to do with those Ukrainian citizens who do not accept this new normal. And there will be quite a few of them, given the protracted military conflict between the countries. More precisely, this is what the polls of the Kiev International Institute of Sociology say, according to which 39% allow communication with Russian-speaking citizens, and 29% allow the possibility of living with them in the same country. A negative attitude towards Russians and Russian-speakers - in other words, intolerance - is felt by 32% of respondents. The number of such people has been steadily falling as the war progresses. Nevertheless, the question of what to do with this third or quarter of the population after the end of the Second World War remains open.

At the moment, Moscow excludes the possibility of a foreign contingent entering Ukrainian territory. Only marginal politicians in Poland, Bulgaria and Romania are talking about their territorial claims. But at some point, given the sharp rightward movement of Europe, the marginals may become the authorities. And the words of the Secretary of the Security Council Dmitry Medvedev about the "quiet division" of Ukraine will not be just words. Such a division may even be advantageous to Moscow: the very people who will not be able to breathe the same air as the Russians will be able to leave for the territories of Ukraine that will fall under the protectorate of Poland, Hungary, Romania or Bulgaria.

https://m.vz.ru/opinions/2025/1/29/1311193.html

A few interesting points........

1) in the media reports from Ukrainian intel that they believe 18-25yrs old won't be trained well enough to go to the frontline, also state that they aren't motivated (am not surprised being forced into the back of a van, beaten, threatened and then forced to fight will a couple of weeks training how are you going to feel mentally). Mothers, girlfriends, and other family members won't be happy at all, but the Ukrainian officials also stated that it would create a void which cannot be filled in the countries workforce which is already under pressure. There was even reports of the government asking for people over 70yrs to come back to work to help their country.

2) reports from western analyst's stating that intelligence agencies have warned of planned Pro Russian partisans uprising in cities, key towns and villages as well as Industrial bases key to the war. There was also concerns these partisans would also target remote areas of logistics hubs and railway lines. Energy infrastructure would also be targeted.
It's pretty difficult for Ukraine to manage such, it cannot use up precious manpower to patrol every metre of railway track or man every substation. Something simple as setting fire to substations, or blowing them up with homemade explosives, or cutting trees down over a railway track can add days of delays to equipment and ammo getting to the front and that could be the difference to Ukrainian armed forces having to retreat or not. If such tactics are employed all over eastern and central Ukraine it could be a disaster for Ukraine. At the end of the day it might seem like small attacks here and there but it all adds to the pressure that is already at bursting point.

3) a personal opinion. If your a Ukrainian serviceman on the frontline and U know that a agreement could be due in the next few months, ask yourself would U be willing to throw yourself at the enemy risking your life? Or defending a village with no significance? Especially when you know in a few months time the war could potentially end and Ur life spared. I would highly expect that Ukrainian servicemen and trying to bide their time doing the minimum and trying to avoid any additional dangers to their daily life hoping that they can make it until a deal is done. Although in some areas neo Nazi masters will be forcing them at gun point to attack. But as that time nears towards an agreement deadline we might find that servicemen who are being forced until a senseless attack in which will most likely end their life might be pushed into attacking it's own officers doing the ordering. Also Ukrainian troops at the frontline will want reinforced with well trained highly motivated troops not ill-trained unmotivated young men who don't want to be there, then add it to the mix of Ukrainian frontline collapsing and a leader that's hellbent on continuing to fight even without USA funds and it seems he's quite happy to eradicate another generation of Ukrainian men it all adds too lowering the moral. Not a great time Ukrainian servicemen at the frontline.

then a neutral territory.

The American regimes don´t accept neutral territories.
As soon as some treaty would be signed leaving Kiev and some western regions part of "Ukraine"
the west would begin to undermine the new regime there and bring his own people to power with
"democratic elections". Then the whole shit would start again.

@Alamo

7+ hours is almost like reading War and Peace...backwards!

It does look very interesting indeed! Probably do some beer and pretzel time over the weekend