“Ukraine – Russia”

The old adage that cheaters never win is proving itself true once again.

Washington — Whatever happened to the Russian Army? For that matter, whatever happened to the Russian Air Force or the Russian Navy, whose flagship is now at the bottom of the Black Sea? The answer is nothing. Nothing has happened to the Russian military for 50 years, and President Vladimir Putin should have thought twice before heaving his armed forces into a war.

#Ukraine: Intense footage of Ukrainian troops moving on Humvees under heavy Russian fire somewhere in #Kherson Oblast – and at least one HMMWV can be seen destroyed. pic.twitter.com/7vsogkozIM

— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) October 5, 2022

Every suspect has the means, a motive and a desire to keep the truth hidden.

Both the old Nord Stream gas pipeline and its newer, never-opened counterpart, Nord Stream 2, were severely damaged last month, just off the Danish island of Bornholm. The incidents were almost immediately deemed an act of sabotage.

In the old days, someone – an international terrorist group, say – might have ‘claimed responsibility’ for such a daring and effective attack. This time, though, there have been only accusations, counter-accusations and denial. And all have been somehow less fierce and less definitive than might have been expected as a response to an attack on a major piece of international infrastructure.

The US’s decision to send more military aid to Ukraine “increases the danger of a direct military clash” between Russia and the West, Moscow has warned.

Russia’s ambassador to the US, Anatoly Antonov, said it was an “immediate threat” to Moscow, describing the US as “a participant of the conflict”.

Earlier, the US announced another $625m (£547m) in military aid to Ukraine.

Advanced US weaponry has been credited with helping Ukraine build momentum against occupying Russian forces.

This is “Survival Lily” who usually does camping stuff etc.

A common line of argument between Russian state propaganda and American conspiracy circles is proliferating these days, namely: the war in Ukraine was allegedly fomented by the Americans to destroy Europe.

For example, the American conspiracy website Revolver News easily refers to the geostrategic considerations of a leading expert on the war in Ukraine, Andrew Korybko. Incidentally, Korybko is also a ‘Moscow-based analyst’ financed by Russia’s autocratic government: a mere detail.

In this thesis, which charges Europe with being the victim of an American plot, everything is false. It is a childish and disempowering falsehood — which makes it attractive to unquestioning minds.

A poll by the outspoken billionaire Elon Musk asking Twitter users to weigh in on a plan to end the Ukraine war has sparked a flurry of criticism, including from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

The controversial “peace” proposal put forward by the entrepreneur behind Tesla Inc and SpaceX included United Nations-supervised elections in the four Ukrainian regions recently annexed by Russia, and recognising Crimea as Russian territory.

For weeks now, on the uncensored Telegram channels of hard-line nationalists and Russian military bloggers, there’s been a litany of angry criticism of Russia’s military commanders amid a stunning Ukrainian counteroffensive in the Kharkiv region and elsewhere resulting in substantial Russian losses.

Now with the Ukrainians’ weekend victory in Lyman, a Donetsk region city and strategic rail hub southeast of Kharkiv, that criticism is bursting into wider public view, hitting the front pages of some of Russia’s biggest newspapers.

That’s a serious problem for Russia’s military brass — and potentially for the Kremlin.

Ukrainian sniper takes out a Russian infantry from a distance of 550m.#Russia #Ukraine pic.twitter.com/uZV9ZWM4wC

— BlueSauron👁️ (@Blue_Sauron) October 3, 2022

The last time I saw Mariana Zhaglo, war was still a rumour. It was January 24, a full month before the Russian invasion, and she stood in her kitchen in Kyiv with the Zbroyer Z-15 hunting carbine she had bought to defend her city against possible Russian attack.

Few of her neighbours believed the Russians would really invade, and Mariana’s preparations — the pickles and tins of fish and ham she had stashed as emergency rations, together with boxes of ammunition — seemed zealously pre-emptive.

#Ukraine: A Russian Ural 4320 truck was ambushed by Ukrainian forces in #Donetsk Oblast, and was destroyed. pic.twitter.com/RW5zOwjepQ

— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) October 2, 2022

… If Ukrainian troops, armed with an array of Western weapons, continue their counteroffensive, they will pose a threat to the Russian homeland in the form of its newly acquired territories. Putin will respond by doing what he has repeatedly warned he would do: employ nuclear weapons. Whether such a use is against a target in Ukraine or just a demonstration shot, the effects would be the same. Such a move would undoubtedly undermine Western support for Kyiv, given that the United States and NATO are virtually certain not to respond in kind. It could also lead to the collapse of the NATO alliance. In essence, Putin might win by losing.

President Putin is set to demonstrate his willingness to use weapons of mass destruction with a nuclear test on Ukraine’s borders, defence sources have warned.

The Kremlin has been signalling its readiness for a significant escalation as Russia loses ground on the battlefield. Fears that Putin’s earlier hints that he might resort to such tactics were heightened today by claims that a train operated by the secretive nuclear division was destined for Ukraine.

Russia no longer has full control of any of the four provinces of Ukraine it says it annexed last week after Ukrainian troops reportedly advanced dozens of kilometres in Kherson province in the south of the country and made additional gains in the east.

On Monday the Russian military acknowledged that Kyiv’s forces had broken through in the Kherson region. It said the Ukrainian army and its “superior tank units” had managed to “penetrate the depths of our defence” around the villages of Zoltaya Balka and Alexsandrovka.

#Ukraine: Another Russian T-80BV tank was captured in #Kharkiv Oblast, seen here being towed by a Ukrainian BREM-1 recovery vehicle over a pontoon bridge. pic.twitter.com/dMbRRWPspM

— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) October 3, 2022

Aman lies groaning on the path with a red stump where his leg was. Ukrainian recruits run through smoke to kneel behind sandbags and fire at the enemy on a sun-baked hillside.

It looks like a scene from the war in eastern Ukraine, but this is southern England and the casualty an amputee actor, engaged by the British Army to help train Ukrainian civilians in rudimentary soldiering skills to defend their homeland from Russia.

The faces of these raw recruits betray their anxiety as bursts of live machinegun fire crackle overhead — the idea is to “inoculate” them, to familiarise them with the sound so they won’t panic in combat.

#Ukraine: The National Guard of Ukraine took out a Russian BMP-3 IFV with an ATGM strike in the vicinity of Pavlivka, #Donetsk Oblast.pic.twitter.com/LMGYJQZQJF

— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) October 2, 2022