A short Ukraine update

Russian Defence Ministry report on the progress of the special military operation

(23 July 2023)

https://t.me/mod_russia_en/8548

▫️ Last night the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation launched a group strike with long-range, sea- and air- based precision weapons against sites where terrorist acts against the Russian Federation were being prepared with the use of unmanned boats, as well as places where they were being manufactured near Odessa. There were foreign mercenaries in the affected facilities.
All the targets have been destroyed.

▫️ The AFU continued unsuccessful attempts to conduct offensive actions in Donetsk, Krasny Liman, South Donetsk, and Zaporozhye directions.

I count around 800 kia from this report alone and it continues day by day and night by night.  I sometimes muse that this is a zone of sacrifice to some very weird, warped and demented rage god.  Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said that the geopolitical decisions of the US and its allies are being dictated by “impotent rage” over the West’s dwindling influence on the global stage.

The Black Sea may still emerge as a pivotal player.  The Grain Deal again illustrates that there is nobody that is agreement capable on the Western side.  In reality, it is the Big Ag companies that cannot now export their grain.   The owners of a significant part of Ukrainian arable land (more than 17 million hectares) are Western corporations Cargill, DuPont and Monsanto. They bought up Ukrainian land after Kiev lifted a 20-year moratorium on its sale at the request of the IMF and became the main beneficiaries of Ukrainian grain exports.  Perhaps it is from the Big Ag side that something will eventually break, as they want to make money and will put immense pressure on their administrations.

Putin and Lukashenko are almost certainly discussing and finally planning a military/technical solution for Belarus, should anything heat up there.  Yet, for the West, the message of having lost big time is becoming crystal clear to the extent that they can sense it and feel it.   Some pundits believe that Ukraine+ still has a massive reserve of hard and trained soldiers scattered around Europe, others believe that the end phase has started.

Wall Street Journal – The West knew that Kiev would not have enough weapons for the offensive, and believed in the “resourcefulness” of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, but this did not help.   “Western military officials knew that the Armed Forces of Ukraine had neither training nor weapons. But they hoped that the courage and resourcefulness of the Ukrainians would prevail.  However, this did not happen.”
“Deadly” minefields, massive fortifications, and Russian air superiority are paralyzing the Ukrainian offensive,” writes the WSJ.

In other words, they believed their own magical demented thinking and were hoping to fight a real war against real weapons with ‘resourcefulness’.  Now there is a very sharp whiff of putrefying desperation in the air and this is not only the dead bodies that are numerous to the extent that they cannot be collected.