Kyiv is suffering from complete blackouts, as the energy system is under daily attacks to the point where repairs are currently impossible.
Russia is also still pushing hard militarily, despite needing to increasingly rely on forcing people to the front. They are however also clearly suffering economically.
(Caolan Robertson is btw extremely worth following, he's one of the absolute few who still does frontline reporting from Ukraine.)
Anders Puck Nielsen with some interesting commentary on the strategic and diplomatic significance of Ukraines attacks against the Russian shadow fleet.
Perun once again does an excellent job of explaining not just what's been happening, but giving context to understand the meaning of what's been happening.
Lots of stuff there, but as a tidbit: Ukraines forces are moving more and more towards a drone-based military, to the point that there are now ground force units and offensive operations that have more drone operators than ground troops.
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Kyiv is suffering from complete blackouts, as the energy system is under daily attacks to the point where repairs are currently impossible.
My wife's best friend lives in Kyiv. There are now rolling blackouts that last more than half the day, some days for 16 hours. This is the norm now. Not just Kyiv either. Had a friend go visit her Mom in Cherniv a few weeks ago and same thing there; hours on end without power.
Imagine terrorists from Al-Qeada or ISIS knocking out power in a European city like Paris or Munich like this. This is not getting anywhere near the attention it deserves.
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My wife's best friend lives in Kyiv. There are now rolling blackouts that last more than half the day, some days for 16 hours. This is the norm now. Not just Kyiv either. Had a friend go visit her Mom in Cherniv a few weeks ago and same thing there; hours on end without power.
Imagine terrorists from Al-Qeada or ISIS knocking out power in a European city like Paris or Munich like this. This is not getting anywhere near the attention it deserves.
It's scenarios like you describe that are enraging to me as a pro Ukraine individual. Like how useless is Europe when it comes to the basic things of protecting people who are literally fighting at Europe's door? Can't even get basic levels of air support protection for 1 capital city but all these European leaders do is talk about "standing with Ukraine"
Europe all talk and zero action for the most part.
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It's scenarios like you describe that are enraging to me as a pro Ukraine individual. Like how useless is Europe when it comes to the basic things of protecting people who are literally fighting at Europe's door? Can't even get basic levels of air support protection for 1 capital city but all these European leaders do is talk about "standing with Ukraine"
Europe all talk and zero action for the most part.
There's three massive things this argument is missing.
First is the Ukrainians own issues. If you missed it, the Zelenskyi government is embroileded in a 100M dollar corruption scandal specifically in projects involving protection of their energy infrastructure from Russian attacks.
While the amount of money siphoned off of those funds isn't decisive itself, it tells you what kind of people have been leading the efforts to protect Ukraines energy infrastructure and what their actual priorities have been.
The amount of overall damage to Ukraines energy defenses these people have likely caused can't be directly measure, but it is guaranteed to be massive, and it has very little to do with the rest of Europe.
This isn't even the only currently ongoing investigation into similar problems. Sad reality is that some Ukrainian oligarchs will literally let their country burn if they can make money from it.
Second problem is that European air defense is built around NATO, and NATO doctrine is built around air supremacy created by primarily US air forces. Much of Europe's military is also reliant on US built weaponry exactly because this is how the US has for decades wanted things to be, and have at many points demanded that this is how things are.
All their demands for increased NATO spending have always been only about us buying more stuff from the US, never about us building more of our own stuff.
Now we're frankly kinda effed when it comes to air defense especially. We just don't have the capabilities or the production lines necessary, and fixing that will take at least a decade.
Should Europe taken the possibility of losing their alliance with the US more seriously? Yeah absolutely, there have been people crying about that for literally decades and more vocally since Trump was first elected. But we were always the minority, and frankly pre-Trump very few people took that worry seriously anywhere.
The current situation in Europe is that we can't even properly defend ourselves from Russian spy drones, let alone Kyiv from attack drones.
Third issue is that the technology to stop what Russia is currently doing likely doesn't really exist. It's easy to s### on Russia, but they are still a huge country with tons of production capability.
The introduction of cheap guidance system, cheap self-targeting systems and drones in general has been an absolute revolution in warfare. Russia is currently launching hundreds of systems across the border every single day from glide bombs to missiles to various drones. The volumes are insane.
Even if every single factory building air defense system were only sending what they build to Ukraine and Russia, I'm not sure it would be enough to stop the current campaigns.
Let's remember that Russia was pre-war one of the biggest producers of air defense systems in the world (if not the biggest), with decades of experience and very solid and proven technology pre-drone era, and they still can't stop Ukraine constantly blowing up their oil refineries, despite Ukrainians having both much smaller volumes to work with, much lower overall capabilities and a lot longer ranges to their targets.
Israel has one of the absolute best air defenses in the world, a much smaller land area to protecr, and in their last conflict they were aided by both US and British air forces, and they still couldn't 100% stop Irans attacks despite being extremely well prepared, the attacks lasting only for a very short time, and involving much lower quality and volume of attacking systems.
The current normal is that air defenses do not hold. Even the famous Patriot system has proven to be aging out of effectiveness under Russiam technological and doctrinal development. New systems to deal with the situation don't even exist yet, and no one even currently knows for sure what the solution would be.
All that said:
It likely would have helped if the US hadn't blown up the military structure it created, and if corruption wasn't simultaneously eating Ukraine from the inside.
Last edited by Itse; 12-03-2025 at 07:24 AM.
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The Kremlin is so desperate to hide the truth, they are now risking civil unrest with mass internet outages across the country in order to block outside news. https://twitter.com/user/status/1996113043747741984
Yesterday, Putin said that Russia was able to cut Ukraine off from the sea. To do that, Putin could use: the Moskva cruiser; the Admiral Makarov frigate; the Sergey Kotov patrol ship; five landing ships (Minsk, Olenegorsky Gornyak, Novocherkassk, Saratov, Tsezar Kunikov); three small missile ships (Askold, Veliky Ustyug, Samum); the Rostov-on-Don diesel-electric attack submarine; a number of auxiliary vessels. https://twitter.com/user/status/1996137390432198820
POKROVSK: Bloody fighting continues and Ru losses mount. Russian casualties in Pokrovsk alone exceed the total casualties of the entire Russian army in the Soviet Afghan War: ~15,000 Ru total KIA over 10 years vs. Pokrovsk's 15,000 Ru casualties per month. https://twitter.com/user/status/1995896764730409057
Russian Forces Culminating? Russian forces in the Pokrovsk AO are now showing signs of reaching a culminating point—the operational limit where offensive momentum stalls due to exhaustion, logistics strain, and unsustainable losses—defined by Clausewitz as the point where attackers can no longer sustain pressure without risking collapse. Evidence includes: • Slowed Tempo: Advances stalled 5 km short of encirclement; reliance on reserves (e.g., 76th VDV) indicates depletion of initial assault echelons. https://twitter.com/user/status/1995911188363051132
Attrition and Percent Losses of Russian Units Verified data confirms manpower/equipment attrition from combat, as logistics are interdicted by UKR drones. Russian logistics face up to 90% losses from UKR artillery, drones, mines and ambushes. Key units in Pokrovsk (51st/2nd/41st Combined Arms Armies, Central Grouping) have suffered heavily: Overall, Central Grouping (Pokrovsk lead) lost 96,574 personnel Jan-Aug 2025 (34% of frontline total), with urban tactics amplifying infantry bleed (up to 2:1 KIA per fireteam). https://twitter.com/user/status/1995911190724427780
DIRECT ACTION-->RESULTS: The owners of the shadow fleet tanker 𝘔𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘪𝘯, damaged by explosions off the coast of Senegal, has made an announcement. It has decided it will cease all Russia-related voyages. https://twitter.com/user/status/1995955431144042538
The greatest irony of this war is the fact Putin has no problems to succumbing to economic servitude and slavery to China while Russian men are getting slaughtered in Ukrainian fields https://twitter.com/user/status/1995905335106969648
If Europe gives back the Russian frozen assets, it'll be pretty ironic when Russia uses that money to rebuild its military and attack Europe. Can't get stupider than this https://twitter.com/user/status/1996019188805370345
War Diary Day 1,378 Witkoff and Kushner just got a smack in the face from “Russian reality”. The killer in the Kremlin kept them waiting for hours. Then he canned their peace deal. The war stops when Russia is defeated. https://twitter.com/user/status/1996159028959867330
Europe threatening to liquidate trillions in US Bonds if the US abandons the Ukraine. A 2.5 trillion liquidation could cause serious harm to the US and it would be well deserved. https://twitter.com/user/status/1995925839242842356
Putin has so far achieved the goals of breaking the US away from NATO, undermining faith in Article 5, weakening the EU through Brexit, and political capture in Hungary and Slovakia, and bolstering the far-right across the West. https://twitter.com/user/status/1996166082961289412
Kasparov: Recall ambassadors, low down diplomatic ties, but Europe is doing business as usual. More than 500K visas were issued for Russians last year. Putin's laughing at you. https://twitter.com/user/status/1995794553958273275
There's three massive things this argument is missing.
First is the Ukrainians own issues. If you missed it, the Zelenskyi government is embroileded in a 100M dollar corruption scandal specifically in projects involving protection of their energy infrastructure from Russian attacks.
While the amount of money siphoned off of those funds isn't decisive itself, it tells you what kind of people have been leading the efforts to protect Ukraines energy infrastructure and what their actual priorities have been.
The amount of overall damage to Ukraines energy defenses these people have likely caused can't be directly measure, but it is guaranteed to be massive, and it has very little to do with the rest of Europe.
This isn't even the only currently ongoing investigation into similar problems. Sad reality is that some Ukrainian oligarchs will literally let their country burn if they can make money from it.
This is by far going to be the toughest winter in Ukraine since the full-scale invasion. Those who partook in stealing not only this money, but from the defence sector as a whole (as you mentioned, this story is not the only event) have contributed to a massive domino effect. This scandal is a dagger to the thigh in the war effort.
I have always said that's it's not just the government who needs a cleansing. Much of the population as well. Oligarchs, collaborators, etc. Some say it's good that stories like this make the news, as it shows there is an effort to address it and the silence would be deafening if no one spoke of it. I say it's frustrating as hell to know people would literally throw their fellow countrymen to the fire to make money. Humans suck.
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I still scratch my head at why the Russian feels like they are so different than Europe that they declared all of Europe an enemy (except Serbia). Europeans and Russians are more similar than different. Imagine a culturally and economically united Europe that includes Moscow.
Of course now this won't happen for at least 100 years, if ever. But it SHOULD have happened after 1990 is what I'm saying.
Kasparov: Recall ambassadors, low down diplomatic ties, but Europe is doing business as usual. More than 500K visas were issued for Russians last year. Putin's laughing at you. https://twitter.com/user/status/1995794553958273275
Not issuing visas would be just stupidity. Vast majority of current visas are to Russians trying to escape Russia as dissidents, or to people who have already fled Russia but don't have permadent residence.
It's good to let people out, and even better to not force them to return.
I still scratch my head at why the Russian feels like they are so different than Europe that they declared all of Europe an enemy (except Serbia). Europeans and Russians are more similar than different. Imagine a culturally and economically united Europe that includes Moscow.
Of course now this won't happen for at least 100 years, if ever. But it SHOULD have happened after 1990 is what I'm saying.
The Warsaw Pact Armies were sad, NATO would have rolled them up in the early 90's no questions asked, but for the nuclear threat.
Poor equipment, Poor training, Poor troops
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Captain James P. DeCOSTE, CD, 18 Sep 1993
Europe threatening to liquidate trillions in US Bonds if the US abandons the Ukraine. A 2.5 trillion liquidation could cause serious harm to the US and it would be well deserved.
__________________ Peter12 "I'm no Trump fan but he is smarter than most if not everyone in this thread. ”
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Not issuing visas would be just stupidity. Vast majority of current visas are to Russians trying to escape Russia as dissidents, or to people who have already fled Russia but don't have permadent residence.
It's good to let people out, and even better to not force them to return.
The problem with that line of thinking is that it ignores that issued visas and their regulations are reciprocal between countries based on their relationships with each other. There is a reason countries like Canada have much more lenient visa restrictions with allied countries like members states of the EU, USA (), Japan, Australia. No offence to other nations, but you will have a hell of a harder time coming here if you are from Senegal, Eritrea, North Korea, Syria, etc. Even prior to the full scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, it was damn hard for a UA national to be issued a visitor visa to Canada until CUAET went into effect.
Severely limiting russian nationals entering EU makes perfect sense, given what is going on. Restricting and scrutinizing arrivals from one country to another that have poor diplomatic relationships has been in place since international travel has been a thing. Hardly stupid at all, as there is historical precedence for it. Relationships with russia is in the toilet right now so it makes perfect sense that visas to russians be severely restricted until diplomatic relationships improve (ie, russia stops the war).
If you are open to having russians being able to enter a country because they are supposedly fleeing from being drafted, then at the same time you should be open to nationals from Sudan, Palestine, etc being able to enter freely into other countries with no restrictions. With the tinder box the world is on right now, that's a very unpopular opinion. Obviously not the right thread to discuss world immigration policies, but there isn't exactly a lot of love right now for russians entering the EU.
I still scratch my head at why the Russian feels like they are so different than Europe that they declared all of Europe an enemy (except Serbia). Europeans and Russians are more similar than different. Imagine a culturally and economically united Europe that includes Moscow.
Of course now this won't happen for at least 100 years, if ever. But it SHOULD have happened after 1990 is what I'm saying.
Are they, though?
Maybe in appearance and proximity but I think Russians think and act very differently due to the political history of their people.
Their current "democracy" is really just a continuation of the stiffling Soviet days (with rhinestone elections), and before that they were ruled by the tsars back to antiquity.
Their people seem content to submit to whatever dictatorship (party or person) that seizes power. When Putin dies I expect the next strongman in line will take power, and the Russian people will submit once again.
Until that changes I can't see them integrating with the rest of Europe.
Europe threatening to liquidate trillions in US Bonds if the US abandons the Ukraine. A 2.5 trillion liquidation could cause serious harm to the US and it would be well deserved.
The US will just freeze Europe's assets first causing worse harm to Europe. Would be a sight to see the west do this to their own team after having done this so often to countries not on their team throughout history.
Some extremely high quality footage from a frontline city in Donbas. Civilian evacuations, volunteers talking about their coping mechanisms, soldiers about the reasons they fight.
Sad, powerful, never hopeless.
Last edited by Itse; 12-05-2025 at 07:06 AM.
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Some extremely high quality footage from a frontline city in Donbas. Civilian evacuations, volunteers talking about their coping mechanisms, soldiers about the reasons they fight.
Sad, powerful, never hopeless.
That is a tough watch.
__________________
Captain James P. DeCOSTE, CD, 18 Sep 1993
In it's way, yes. Although I find something beautiful in it too. Wars are so often either images of destruction or detached imagery of movements on maps or this or that strategic achievement or technological development.
Some part of me feels better about seeing the everyday humanity, and Robertson giving normal, relatable people a chance to speak about how they actually feel and what think about, not just politicians or talking heads on TV. It's hard in some ways because war sucks and the Russian military is a monster, but there's also so much power and resilience in these people that I feel it's impossible not to respect them when you see these kinds of videos.
Which is why I think these are such valuable videos and so worth sharing.
They're also really valuable documentation of Russian way of war, and helps explain why Ukrainians want to fight for every village and every town.
Russians are actively hunting and killing civilians every day ans everywhere they can reach. Every kilometer that the frontline moves brings more places in range of Russian weapons.
On a less rough note, I really enjoyed this interview about the corruption crisis. Such a grounded take.
Here Caolan talks about the fact there's also blackouts in Moscow, and while they might not be as all-encompassing... Ukrainians have dealt with blackouts for a long time and they have tons of generators all over the Kyiv. Not so in Moscow.
It's also really hard to tell Russians that the war is going the right way, when ordinary Russians are now seeing the effects of war more and more each day.
Lots of other interesting commentary too, well worth listening to the whole thing.
Last edited by Itse; 12-05-2025 at 04:01 PM.
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In it's way, yes. Although I find something beautiful in it too. Wars are so often either images of destruction or detached imagery of movements on maps or this or that strategic achievement or technological development.
Some part of me feels better about seeing the everyday humanity, and Robertson giving normal, relatable people a chance to speak about how they actually feel and what think about, not just politicians or talking heads on TV. It's hard in some ways because war sucks and the Russian military is a monster, but there's also so much power and resilience in these people that I feel it's impossible not to respect them when you see these kinds of videos.
Which is why I think these are such valuable videos and so worth sharing.
They're also really valuable documentation of Russian way of war, and helps explain why Ukrainians want to fight for every village and every town.
Russians are actively hunting and killing civilians every day ans everywhere they can reach. Every kilometer that the frontline moves brings more places in range of Russian weapons.
Sorry that wasn't a knock on you or the product.
It was focused on the content. I'l carve out time to watch the other videos you posted.
Lots to take in on that video.
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Captain James P. DeCOSTE, CD, 18 Sep 1993
), Japan, Australia. No offence to other nations, but you will have a hell of a harder time coming here if you are from Senegal, Eritrea, North Korea, Syria, etc. Even prior to the full scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, it was damn hard for a UA national to be issued a visitor visa to Canada until CUAET went into effect.
