https://twitter.com/Osinttechnical/s...79705713095108

https://x.com/noclador/status/165047...HhlFHGKbTPQr_A

https://x.com/trenttelenko/status/17...HhlFHGKbTPQr_A

The Biden Administration’s strategy is now to sustain Ukrainian defense until after the U.S. presidential elections, in the hope of wearing down Russian forces in a long war of attrition. This strategy seems sensible enough, but contains one crucially important implication and one potentially disastrous flaw, which are not yet being seriously addressed in public debates in the West or Ukraine. The implication of Ukraine standing indefinitely on the defensive—even if it does so successfully—is that the territories currently occupied by Russia are lost.

As I found in Ukraine last year, many Ukrainians in private were prepared to accept the loss of some territories as the price of peace if Ukraine failed to win them back on the battlefield and if the alternative was years of bloody war with little prospect of success.

A successful peace process would undoubtedly involve some painful concessions by Ukraine and the West. Yet the pain would be more emotional than practical, and a peace settlement would have to involve Putin giving up the plan with which he began the war, to turn the whole of Ukraine into a Russian vassal state, and recognizing the territorial integrity of Ukraine within its de facto present borders.

According to the new study, the Russian death toll has jumped to 66,000-88,000 as of December 31st 2023. That estimate falls within the range of recent tallies by Western intelligence agencies: the latest estimate by Britain’s Ministry of Defence stood at 70,000. Officials in America think it could be as high as 120,000 (see chart 1).

A declassified U.S. intelligence report assessed that the Ukraine war has cost Russia 315,000 dead and injured troops,

Appeal to ridicule is often found in the form of comparing a multi-layered circumstance or argument to a laughably commonplace event or to another irrelevant thing. This is a rhetorical tactic that mocks an opponent's argument or position, attempting to inspire a strong emotional reaction (making it a type of appeal to emotion) and to highlight any counter-intuitive aspects of that argument, making it appear foolish and contrary to common sense. This is typically done by mocking the argument's representative foundation in an uncharitable and oversimplified way. The person using the tactic is often sarcastic in their argument.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky suggested on Sunday that plans for Kyiv’s long-awaited counteroffensive last year had been leaked to Russia ahead of time.

Ukraine’s counteroffensive in 2023, powered by billions of dollars in Western arms, largely fell flat, failing to break through multiple lines of Russian defences and fortifications.

“Our counteroffensive action plans were on the Kremlin’s table before the counteroffensive actions began,” Zelensky said Sunday at a press conference in Kyiv.

His office subsequently confirmed to AFP that Zelensky was referring to Moscow obtaining sensitive military planning information.

Zelensky did not provide any other details on the leak.

He went on to say that Kyiv was preparing “several” versions of its battlefield strategy for 2024 to help avoid a repeat.

Asked whether Ukraine had plans for another attempt at a counteroffensive this year, he said: “We have a plan, a clear plan. Several plans will be prepared because of information leaks.”

Russian forces are now back on the advance across eastern Ukraine, having captured the symbolic frontline town of Avdiivka and seeking to press their advantage in ammunition and manpower.