Ukraine says it has liberated four villages in the south-east, calling these the first settlements won back from Russia since Kyiv’s counter-offensive began...
An area amounting to about 6 km by 6 km. Still an excuse for cheerleading and manufacturing consent for escalation. One of the villages is like 6 houses.
Most signs indicate that UA is taking heavy losses while RUS occasionally cedes (and then often takes back) territory. This has been the pattern of the war. In addition, UA military statements are not generally credible, so always take a skeptical eye to these things - particularly from an English-language tabloid uncritically repeating MoD propaganda.
That is the common narrative among Americans and Redditors, but it is, as to be expected, based on an uncritical acceptance of numbers and stories from untrustworthy sources, sources with an obvious interest in keeping support for the sending weapons and other military support to UA. This post, for example, coming from Pravda UA and just passing along the message from the MoD. No critical look at any of it from liberals, just cheerleading based on vibes.
Kherson and Kharkiv are both examples of Russia giving up territory with minimal losses. Kherson was a very famous preemptive withdrawal, with Russia going back on its statements that it would protect the people there. I feel bad for the people there who believed it and tried to build back a functioning society, as they were then subjected to UA’s fascistic extremist militants that have wide berth to determine a very low bar for being a “collaborator”.
Control maps don’t mean much by themselves. A party taking a large strip of mud gets very different media treatment depending on who you read and which party gained it.
Reminder that USAID is used cynically as a form of leverage for US interests, it largely funnels money back to private industry in the US, and it is heavily involved in absurd propaganda that calls (US-supported) military coup governments democratic and (US-opposed) governments the usual series of adversarial clichés (hand-picked successor authoritarian strong man etc etc). The US State Department has its own positions on the war and groups in Ethiopia and you would have a good chance at being right if you guessed this was targeted to undermine the groups they do not want in charge.
Really though this just warrants skepticism, we can’t definitively tell the exact strategy yet.
Ukraine war: Kyiv claims first victories of counter-offensive - BBC News (www.bbc.com)
Ukraine says it has liberated four villages in the south-east, calling these the first settlements won back from Russia since Kyiv’s counter-offensive began...
Ukraine's Armed Forces advance another 1,400 metres on Bakhmut front (www.pravda.com.ua)
USAID suspends all food assistance to Ethiopia after uncovering scheme diverting aid (edition.cnn.com)