Quote:
Originally Posted by Firebot
On recent news Putin blinked again and is now back in on the grain deal...for now. Provoking a NATO response even accidently isn't something he is willing to test or gamble on at this point in time, there is a small level of self-preservation sanity still left. Turkey stood up and he had to sit back down as the grain shipments were going to go on without Russia involvement. His bluff and blackmail backfired pretty significantly here.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-63483133
Other notable news related to the war, Saudi Arabia is claiming that Iran is planning an attack. Internal turmoil in Iran has not made much news in recent weeks (difficult when media has been censored there) but the protests are just as large as they have been on day 1 after the murder of Mahsa Amini. Iran's regime is in a precarious position here and war tends to be one of the best ways to distract from internal problems. There has been over reported 450 deaths and 25K arrested so far. With Iran supplying drones and ballistic missiles to Russia and being an active supporter of the Ukraine invasion, wonder what type of intervention will we see here as events continue to escalate.
The US has also confirmed today that North Korea is supplying Russia with significant artillery shells.
There hasn't been much direct news about new progress outside of Bakmut's successful defense but reported Russian daily are the highest they have ever been outside of the very first day of the war, with reported Russian losses ranging from 600 to as high as 950 in recent days. They will be hitting 1000+ KIA per day soon...a total meat grinder that is only accelerating.
https://twitter.com/user/status/1587836083345170432 |
It's not clear those are KIA and not "eliminated from battle" to include injured. And those numbers are not believed by Western Military as they peg the number to likely be half of that.
Having said that, I think I read somewhere that estimates for injured and unable to perform are 3-4x the KIA so it's getting significant for Russia