The Russians have had great tactics and strategy so far save for one thing. They didn't provide for new administration in the liberated areas. This let the Nazis creep back in.
So says Andrei of Saker fame in a monster essay of nearly 6000 words published 25 March. He says he'll be away a few days, and he hopes his essay gives people enough to talk about until his return.
http://thesaker.is/one-month-into-the-russian-special-operation-in-the-ukraine/
Andrei is a former analyst for the Swiss Strategischer Nachrichtendienst SND.
The Russian assessment was reported here yesterday.
Bernhart at MoA published his assessment yesterday as well.
His bullet points:
The Russians around Kiev are making no offensive, but the forces east and west of Kiev are binding a big part of the Ukrainian army and preventing it from sending reserves towards Donbass.
Kharkov is about to get encircled.
The Russians destroyed a railway station between Dnipro and Donbass from where supplies were flowing to Ukraine forces.
Mariupol is now in mop-up mode. The Azovs there have no chance to survive.
Russian passage through Mykolayiv towards Odessa has proven to be difficult. Artillery is now softening up the Ukrainian defense lines. There are unconfirmed reports of large Ukrainian losses in Mykolayiv (300+) due to a missile strike on their barracks.
The US (and big guy) tried to use their NATO/G7 powwows to get Europe to further sanction Russia, but they failed. And asking China to side with the US won't work either.
The latest truth casualties emanating from AP and CNN were swiftly smashed by Andrei Martyanov.
Task & Purpose cited a Pentagon officer as saying:
'We continue to have low confidence in those estimates.'
The New York Times of course cannot let a bad idea go to waste.
“The asserted gains in territory are hard to quantify, or verify... it was not clear that Ukraine had regained any ground... I don't understand where this nonsense came from, it is not true.”
Venerable Forbes and many others also wanted to play along.
Finally, MoA included this link.
https://eng.mil.ru/en/special_operation/news/more.htm?id=12414735@egNews
And uploaded a plain text version.
https://www.moonofalabama.org/12i/midrudoc2.txt
One Month
It's now been one month. Gonzalo Lira is still in Kharkov, Patrick Lancaster is there somewhere, and Eva Bartlett dropped in for a visit.
Humanitarian Corridors
Official info from RF.
https://eng.mil.ru/en/special_operation/briefings/humanitarian_response/more.htm?id=12414619@egNews
“Humanitarian corridors open daily at 10:00 in the directions of Kiev, Chernigov, Sumy, Kharkov, and Mariupol, one to Russia and one more through Kiev-controlled territories towards Ukraine's western borders.
“Of the routes proposed by the RF, Ukrainian authorities have agreed to only three, and not a single humanitarian corridor to the RF has yet been confirmed by Kiev. This once again proves the indifference of Kiev to its own people.
“Since March 2, the RF has already delivered 4,933 tons of humanitarian cargo to Ukraine and carried out 597 humanitarian actions, including 36 over the past day in the Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics, Kiev, Chernigov, Sumy, Kharkov, Zaporozhye, Kherson and Nikolayev regions, during which 379 tons of food, clothing, hygiene products and medicines were transferred to civilians.
“On March 24, 2022, 20 humanitarian actions are being held in the Kiev, Sumy, Chernigov and Kherson regions, during which 110 tons of basic necessities and food packages, including baby food and vital medicines, are being transferred to the population.“
Polls
Russia-Ukraine war fails to fuel Biden rebound, poll shows
(Then what's the point? No one of substance believed Colin Powell, yet Dubya's polls were still good, no?)
Concern about Russia has swelled and support for a major US role in the conflict strengthened in the last month, but Biden's negative approval rating has not budged, according to the poll Thursday from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
Ask them to find Babi Yar on a map.
Ask them if they've read Putin's 24 Feb speech.
Ask them how long the war in Donbass has been going on.
Then you begin to understand the extent and the intensity of this current IO.
Stop the Presses! BBC Using Ukie Nazi IO
https://thegrayzone.com/2022/03/25/bbc-fixer-war-ukrainian-nationalist-pr-operative/
That's her alright.
She was here.
https://empirics.asia/orysia-khimiak-pr-communications-manager/
That piece links to the account below.
https://twitter.com/orysia_khimiak
Ex Head of PR @reface_app Now fixer in Lviv for reporters who show honest image of Russian war against Ukraine.
Note her masthead has a thoroughly debunked Kiev lie about Snake Island.
"I was supposed to become a journalist, and to that end, obtained a Masters degree in Journalism. I ended up working in public relations (PR). Ironically, a professor on the faculty tried to persuade me that working in public relations is a deal with the devil and it's the worst thing that could ever happen to a journalist. I have been working in PR now for 7 years, helping the most prominent startups gain coverage in Global media outlets such as Forbes, The Verge, Mashable, Tech Crunch, TNW, and the Financial Times."
A beaut:
"Everyone in business should read this book: 'Crystallizing Public Opinion' by Edward Bernays. This book defines and explains public relations."
Say no more.
"I just can't accept opinion that not all Russians are bad." - Orysia Khimiak
Cue the racist card.
"Though BBC proclaims in its own statement of values, 'Trust is the foundation of the BBC. We're independent, impartial and honest,' its hiring of a Ukrainian public relations specialist who has confessed to hatred of all Russians to arrange its coverage of the war in the country is hardly surprising." - Max Blumenthal
“The BBC has shed any pretense of objectivity by hiring an overtly nationalist Ukrainian public relations operative to shape its coverage of one of the most heavily disputed incidents in a war filled with cynical deceptions.” - Max Blumenthal
Says all. Thanks, Max.
(What makes them so rabid?)
1.1 million followers. Their IO peeps are sophisticated.
https://twitter.com/IAPonomarenko
https://kyivindependent.com/author/illia-ponomarenko/
"Illia Ponomarenko is the defense and security reporter at the Kyiv Independent. He has reported about the war in eastern Ukraine since the conflict's earliest days. He covers national security issues, as well as military technologies, production, and defense reforms in Ukraine. Besides, he gets deployed to the war zone of Donbas with Ukrainian combat formations. He has also had deployments to Palestine and the Democratic Republic of the Congo as an embedded reporter with UN peacekeeping forces. Illia won the Alfred Friendly Press Partners fellowship and was selected to work as USA Today's guest reporter at the U.S. Department of Defense."
Interview with Mariupol refugees
Interview with #Mariupol refugees (VIDEO)
You know what happened at the drama theatre?
- They blew up the drama theatre.
So it wasn't a bombing but an explosion?
- Nothing landed on it, it exploded from inside.
Did Azov let ppl leave the city?
- They didn't let anyone leave.
See Andrei's piece at the Saker for how he personally reacts to this explosion of racism. (He's half-Russian.)