pmp10

Not coincidentally the last working nuclear reactor was shut down today at Zaporizhzhia NPP. I bet Russia planned to hit the energy grid during the winter anyway, but after offensive they needed a quick morale boost.

We will have to agree to disagree on that one. Two salients created when their breakthrough attempts were contained are well visible on the map even today. Maybe they can eventually grind-out a win of sorts but this was clearly not the plan. Especially given the costs.

Rumors are flying that another offensive might be in the making: Seems terribly ambitious given the failure in Kherson. But then again at one point Zelenskyy mentioned a plan to end the war by Christmas and I doubt he had surrender in mind.

What makes you think that the war will be over? Ukraine cannot accept loss of territory and Russia has no reason to stop fighting. Wouldn't be the first half-frozen forever-war in the world. And no one will seriously invest in rebuilding when cruise missiles can strike their construction site at any moment.

Ah I see the problem. *insert obligatory world-doesn't-revolve-around-US joke Us poor continentals trade our gas in the Netherlands:

I assume they mean the end-user price? The current market price has over 250% YoY increase.

It will also be on the lips of protesters angling for benefits or trying to overthrow their governments. The real affected poor are very unlikely to be noticed.

Whoever the open society foundation polled. Although I admit they are not very open about methodology.

Let's first see if people of EU are at all willing to sacrifice. Some 32% of western Europeans are now afraid their families will go hungry. Quite the self-pitying nonsense for a region with 20% obesity rate.

He means at the border. Ukraine can't force anyone to come back once they left the country. Funnily enough at one point they considered criminalizing not-returning when subject to conscription. But I don't think that law was ever passed.

Predictably energy prices protests are starting in Europe with the Czech one being surprisingly big. I guess local politics also played a part. I doubt Czechs have any extra Russian sympathy not found in Hungary. By which you mean that there is nothing left to redeem? It's pretty clear for some time that this German government will stall and sabotage weapon transfers as far as it's practical to do so.

To the surprise of few the Nord Stream 1 emergency maintenance won't be completed to schedule. No restart date is available ATM. Energy war is kicking into high gear.

G7 plans to cap Russian oil prices. I wonder how do they hope to enforce it. They can't even get a condemnation for the war from major prospective customers like India.

That one was almost certainly a real accident. A shaman injecting toad venom as a cure for alcoholism seems too absurd for an FSB excuse.

And on the economic front: EU plans intervention in energy markets. Unsurprising given the massive price jumps recently. We will see how quickly EC can act when well-motivated.

An interesting thing happened recently: Zaporizhzhia NPP has been reconnected to Ukrainian power grid. Had to be done by the Russians even though they seemed adamant to shut the place down if it couldn't power Crimea. This along with constant delays to referendums and Azov trails might point to an active effort to freeze the conflict.

Both sides have made claims of 200+ kills in various strikes. It's becoming the propaganda number for 'a lot'.

There are maybe two months worth of decent weather left in the year. Even if divisions worth of hardware arrived today, there is no way they would be ready in time.

I'm surprised a message this important is communicated in a one paragraph lifted from an obscure interview. In practice this could mean a military stalemate for at least the rest of the year.

That's actually pretty interesting. I doubt that anyone would waste a long range missile on just a transformer. This gives credence to the rumors that attacks in Crimea were launched by saboteur units infiltrated there.

Seems Ukrainians are slowing backing down from taking any offensive actions. Kherson is both an example that Russia can referendum-away any territory and a springboard for a future push on Odessa. They wouldn't give-up on it if there were any chances of success. A bad indication for future of Ukraine.

Referendum in Zaporizhzhia officially announced. Russia doesn't control the whole region so that could well be a de facto claim on the remainder. Also September keeps getting mentioned as a date, likely to be coordinated with the one in Kherson. Time is running out for any potential Ukrainian military offensives.

The report was so neutral it's being used as a card blanche to justifying hitting hospitals. Between this and the '30% of aid makes it to front' quote it's clearly a serious attempt to reverse narrative around Ukraine. Most likely too early for that just yet, but 'had it coming' is only a matter of time.

Russia labels Azov a terrorist organization. Changes of them being exchanged or released are now next to nil. That's also a 3rd POW related stunt within a week. They can clearly feel the west's interest waning.

Parts of the roof are still standing so we can safely discount anything heavier than an artillery shell. 100kg of TNT from HIMARS would sent the whole thing sky-high. If Russians are really innocent in this they shouldn't mind returning corpses in condition fit for autopsy. I'm not holding my breath.