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Yay, after 2.5 years of bleeding the RF army dry at Pesky, Bakhmut. Ugledar and Avdeevka, te Russians are coming to the end of the Donbass urbanisation in the western sector. Woohoo. Knowing how rotten the Russian command is, they will likely go about assaulting Toretsk and the rest of the agglomeration towards Slaviansk. Putin clearly doesn't want to win the war, only destroy the Russian army in pointless offensives in Donbass.

(If they do go towards Pavlograd and Dnepropetrovsk instead, I will concede and jump a few times irl rethinking my Weltanschauung.)

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I would add Marinka near Donetsk and Bogdanovka east of Seversk as another couple of notorious meatgrinding points.

I wouldn't rush to Pavlograd if I were the Russian command, but once in Pokrovsk I would try to roll down from behind the remaining Ukro defenses in the South Donetsk oblast, then focus on taking Kostantinovka -> Druzhovka ->Kramatorsk -> Sloviansk in the North.

Also with help coming from the North: there have been important gains also in the area of Kupiansk. There the AFU defends with the Oskil river on its back, and I cannot even fathom how they managed to hold that line for so long.

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I do agree that the road to Pavlograd would be through Ugledar, and maybe even flanking the Zaporojye front from the north-east. But the Slavyansk agglomeration? Even moving there would be a huge waste.

...And that's why I would expect it at this point, lmao. And the media pundits would find great wisdom in it, because Donetsk Oblast is legally Russian, whereas Dnepropetrovsk isn't. I have long since stopped expecting anything exciting from this war (although I have been following the Deepstate map religiously, small pleasures).

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This "war" is the most boring ever...

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Good article but lost me when you stated the ratio of dead is 1:1. It most definitely is not and is closer to 5:1, if not higher, in Russia’s favor. If a new front is opened by Belarus it will make the situation even tougher for ukraine. The only thing ukraine can hope for is for poland to get tagged in; or better, NATO.

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From my very limited knowledge, I'd say that Lukashenko knows better than opening a new front.

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> Pokrovsk, a town that is a very significant transport hub for the Ukrainians, and alongside Slavyansk and Kramatorsk is the last large town in Donbass not in Russian hands.

Wouldn't say so.

Dobropyllia = 30,000 inhabitants

Druzhivka = 66,000 inhabitants

Konstantinovka = 74,000 inhabitants

All above are still in the hands of the AFU, + the Lyman area beyond the Donets river which is smaller in terms of population but strategically significant

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> Pokrovsk' name until 2016 "decommunization" was Krasnoarmeysk

I remember the grisly footage of mercenaries just outside the door of that building first shooting up in the air, then directly into the crowd of protesters. Some of the latter were shot dead on camera.

But the crowd did not relent, and some youngster boldly stepped forward and got to the mercenaries' faces, only to be shot to the foot. It was such a grisly view that he must have had that limb amputated, if he survived at all.

Cannot find the footage anymore around the internet though. Doesn't help that Simplicius' video channel is on bitchute, where the search feature is subpar.

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Excellent war sitrep. Only quibble - I don't think Russia is losing 120 soldiers daily, try 2x that. poteru.net losses for Russia in May, June, and July - omitting August because of reporting lag - was 9440 or average of 104 losses per day; that's ofc an absolute lower bound, giving it the usual 2x adjustment ups it to 210 per day. UAlosses suggest Ukrainian daily losses at 100 / day, or a loss ratio of 2:1 in its favor.

Of course dependent on just how acute Ukraine's manpower crisis is that could still be enough to win. However, if not, 2:1 is a bad ratio in the context of a war in which Russia only has a 4.5:1 manpower advantage and inherently lower mobilization capacity due to the war's dual status as both a war of aggression, and an aggressively non-ideological one as concerns the home front (beyond the schizo Gay Nazi Satanism tropes).

Especially since I don't really see how that ratio improves in Russia's favor, short of Trump winning and fulfilling the worst nightmares NAFO have about him. If anything, further deterioration seems likelier than not due to dwindling Russian armor stocks, Western shells production continuing creep up, and trends towards increasing Ukrainian drone superiority.

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Sep 3·edited Sep 3

Realistically I fail to see what Trump could achieve in this regard upon reassuming the presidency that isn’t generally in line with the existing agenda(s) of the State Department, ‘intelligence apparatus’, and the various corporations at their disposal. The US is deeply invested in Ukraine, one way or another they will remain a client state indefinitely. Better for their aims if more Slavs are killed and displaced on both ends, and all the better for them that Putin is gleefully cooperating to that end. Makes it far easier to deracinate the survivors and plunder their land.

As you’ve pointed out, there’ll be nothing but continued deterioration, if the situation in Kursk is anything to go by. But who knows, this could actually be another famous Kremlin 5D chess maneuver where DC crosses yet another “red line” with zero consequences. Trust the plZn.

There really isn’t any positive outcome for current Russian statesmen besides avoiding a plane ride to The Hague in cuffs to feed the mob, and being allowed to resume their kleptocracy of managed, intentional decline. This war may as well already be over, as far as the general outcome is concerned. The only question that remains is which territories the US will allow them to keep, and which kleptocrats will assume control of these or those resources. Who knows, maybe I’m too cynical or even just plainly ignorant of the true nature of this conflict.

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