By Siobhán O’Grady, Liz Sly and Ievgeniia Sivorka
Newly promised Western weapons systems are arriving, but too slowly and in insufficient quantities to prevent incremental but inexorable Russian gains in the eastern Donbas region of Ukraine, which is now the focus of the fight.
The Ukrainians are still fighting back, but they are running out of ammunition and suffering casualties at a far higher rate than in the initial stages of the war. Around 200 Ukrainian soldiers are now being killed every day, up from 100 late last month, an aide to President Volodymyr Zelensky told the BBC on Friday — meaning that as many as 1,000 Ukrainians are being taken out of the fight every day, including those who are injured.
The Russians are still making mistakes and are also losing men and equipment, albeit at a lesser rate than in the first months of the conflict. In one sign that they are suffering equipment shortages, they have been seen on videos posted on social media hauling hundreds of mothballed, Soviet-era T-62 tanks out of storage to be sent to Ukraine.
But the overall trajectory of the war has unmistakably shifted away from one of unexpectedly dismal Russian failures and tilted in favor of Russia as the demonstrably stronger force.
Ukrainian and U.S. hopes that the new supplies of Western weaponry would enable Ukraine to regain the initiative and eventually retake the estimated 20 percent of Ukrainian territory captured by Russia since its Feb. 24 invasion are starting to look premature, said Oleksandr V. Danylyuk, an adviser to the Ukrainian government on defense and intelligence issues.
“The strategies and tactics of the Russians are completely different right now. They are being much more successful,” he said. “They have more resources than us and they are not in a rush.”
“There’s much less space for optimism right now,” he added.
Ukrainian forces remain resolute. In a cafe in the front line town of Slovyansk, two Ukrainian soldiers on a break from the trenches nearby recounted how they were forced to retreat from the town of Dovhenke, northwest of Slovyansk, under withering Russian artillery fire. Thirty-five of their 100-strong unit were killed in the assault, typical of the tactics Russia is using. “They destroy everything and walk in,” said one of the soldiers, Vitaliy Martsyv, 41.
“There is nothing there,” Andriy Tihonenko, 52, said of Dovhenke. “It’s all burned down.”
As troop fatalities mounted, the surviving soldiers felt “more motivated to hold our position,” Tihonenko said. To retreat after their comrades were killed defending the town, he said, would have felt like treating their deaths as insignificant.
But eventually, the defensive line was no longer effective, the two men said. With more than one-third of their force killed, the remaining soldiers had no choice but to pull back.
“Sometimes you feel down,” Tihonenko said. “But then you realize war is war — and you have to finish it.”
But the odds against the Ukrainians are starting to look overwhelming, said Danylyuk, the government adviser.
“The Russians are using long-range artillery against us, often without any response, because we don’t have the means,” he said. “They can attack from dozens of kilometers away and we can’t fire back. We know all the coordinates for all their important targets, but we don’t have the means to attack.”
Ukraine has now almost completely run out of ammunition for the Soviet-era weapons systems that were the mainstay of its arsenal, and the Eastern European countries that maintained the same systems have run out of surplus supplies to donate, Danylyuk said.
No shit Sherlock. Only idiots did not see that coming
If Putin “wins”, he’ll face endless insurgency in occupied Ukraine, and endless retaliatory attacks on soft targets inside of Russia. The man is an idiot.
The only idiot here is you and your delusions
Yeah, that certainly rebuts the observation that I just made.
You’re delusions have been rebutted constantly and still you continue on…. like a idiot
Like you’re rebutting the following?
Every single one of your “the walls are closing in” hysterics have been rebutted. None of your predictions have came to pass just as this one will not be. You really believe that in terrority that is heavily Russian there will be a insurgency?
Where do you come up with shit?
Your just delusional.
Ukrainians who speak Russian are no more Russians than Americans who speak Spanish are Spaniards. Putin’s unprovoked destruction of Ukrainian towns and cities and the slaughter of its people guarantee such an outcome. He has made it personal. Endless insurgency would be inevitable. It would be like having Russian-occupied Afghanistan on the border of Russia, 279 miles from Moscow. Putin is creating a nightmare scenario for his own people. He’s thrown the world’s economies into turmoil in the process. There’s likely going to be famine in areas dependent on Ukraine’s harvests and grain exports, which will result in spreading political instability.
Only Biden is to blame for that
Because America didn’t bend over and grab its ankles for Vladimir effin’ Putin?
My parents’ generation understood what Hitler was—a lesson that’s apparently lost, only two generations later.
So your grandparents supported Nazis as you are right now
My father dropped bombs on them, in North Africa and Italy. My grandfathers were too old to go to war against the fascists and Nazis.
Then your father would be quite ashamed of the nazi supporter you’ve become.
Maybe you should come back when you sober up.
Oh snap… good one. Pat yourself on the back you good little nazi
Idiot Biden had already destroyed our economy BEFORE he gave Putin the green light to invade Ukraine.
Putin isn’t Hitler.
Stop it.
More of your hysterics you Nazi toady
And even more hysterics that will not come to pass.
You should take your afternoon nap and let the adults continue this conversation.
What conversation? You’ve had nothing to say about any of the comments I’ve made, other than Twitter posts from Putin trolls and playground taunts. I suppose you might win on points, if the contest is judged by retire05, Deplorable Me, and TrumpWon. But then what have you won?
Reason doesn’t seem to enter in. Facts are irrelevant, and principles are missing entirely. Hostility seems to be the driving force, directed into some sort of crack-brained desire to “own the libs” or “defeat the dims”—symbols for whatever it is that’s actually eating at you. This is what Trump and his GOP have harnessed to further their own ends. Unfortunately, furthering their own ends is not a matter of promoting unification, or the collective good of everyone in the nation. It’s a matter of promoting divisions and rendering us increasingly vulnerable to bad actors, foreign and domestic. It’s a matter of promoting distrust of every principle and institution that’s the foundation of our democracy.
Right back at ya with your continual delusions of nazis somehow winning a war with Russia. Now that you finally see that they is no way, no how that the nazis win this fight you now see insurgencies and assassins around every corner ready to take putin out.
Every source of information provided to you, you dismiss as trolls.
You’ve lost your mind since Russia invaded and I don’t see it returning anytime soon.
06/10/22 – Putin undermined his own rationale for invading Ukraine, saying that the war is to expand Russian territory
——————————-
Most of the anti-Ukrainian Twitter posts being shared here ARE from Russian trolls. Elon Musk has opined that upwards of 20 percent of all Twitter accounts are propaganda bots. Some have actually been identified as Russian State Media accounts. Putin has locked down all Russian media sources.
Bahahahaha…Bill Bostock? Liberal hack. Dismissed.
All those videos provided come from first hand eyewitness accounts via Telegram.
Continue with your delusions of nazi greatness returning to the world.
Notice the correlation between support for Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin?
It’s on full display here, should anyone think that it’s somehow significant.
Meanwhile in matters that truly impact Americans, the economy is getting worse by the day with no workable plan to rectify.
biden thinks the answer is to flood America with illegal aliens who have zero skills and do not speak the language of the land
No, I don’t. Point it out.
I just did.
Notice the correlation between support for Joe Biden and Nazi’s
It’s on full display from Greg, should anyone think that it’s somehow significant.
Now I see where you get delusions.
Another one of Bostock’s propaganda pieces.
Source
I have a feeling every piece of delusional propaganda you have spewed will come back to this liberal hack.
Oh boy, you’ve picked a winner here
Source? Mr. Bill Bostock
See, if they worked for idiot Biden, HE would carry it back for them… in his pants.
Screw Ukraine
Putin has already screwed YOU at the gas pump, and you don’t even realize it.
Bwahahahahaha
06/10/22 – Ukraine says so many Russians were killed that the Russian army is storing dead soldiers in a meatpacking plant turned morgue
Yahoo and Ukraine. ok so there is a morgue, you must go way back in history where there were not makeshift morgues. Guess the Nazis just leave their dead to rot.
Bullshit
energy prices were rising from inflationary pressures long before the skirmish in Ukraine
That is a lie the con man biden keeps pushing
You spelled “idiot Biden” wrong and we are all very, very aware.
Biden did that.
Not Putin
Oil was $83.92/barrel in January 2022; it’s now $120/barrel. Do you remember what happened in February 2022? Are you aware that gasoline is refined from oil?
Oil was $58.31/barrel in January 2021. When Putin invaded Ukraine it was $101.98/barrel. Now it’s $120.00. How do you excuse the doubling in barrel cost before Puting invaded Ukraine?
Biden did that. He campaigned on doing that; he promised he would do that. He’s bending over and grabbing his ankles for OAC and her radical global warming cult. And now he’s going to use the nation’s corn supply not to feed the people but to make ethanol.
Meanwhile Americans are suffering because the stupid believed Biden when he said he would take responsibility for what happens and all he can do is blame Putin, Trump, et al.
You should be ashamed of voting for Biden. He will destroy this nation.
There’s nothing to explain or excuse. Demand for oil cratered during the global COVID pandemic. There was such a huge surplus that it cost more to pump and refine than it could be sold for.
I can’t believe that you really don’t know that.
Which is why it is pretty dishonest to brag about energy production being more than Trump’s first year (after 8 years of Obama strangling it) or his final year. I can’t believe that you really don’t know that.
Biden said he’d phase out oil.
Finck said no one would be able to afford gas so they HAVE to buy electric.
These people tell what they are going to do.
And they do it.
Biden did that…was already doing that.
Not Putin.
Your lie failed.
Give up.
Americans Call Out Biden’s Economy LIES
I really don’t think anyone even listens to this idiot liar. Everyone KNOWS every statement he pukes out is a massive lie. They’ll repeat what he says, but they know it’s a lie.
Dang, remember the actual leader we HAD before fraud took him out of office? Look at the disaster all that corruption brought us.
The trolls greg and michael do
Ukraine is almost as massive a disaster for illegitimate joe as was Afghanistan
https://twitter.com/Youblacksoul/status/1535663015789481985?t=VN35IwM7nEFqrWPWyWFIjQ&s=19
https://twitter.com/Youblacksoul/status/1535594495999365120?t=a6pMHKlf554uQpa92kCJJw&s=19
https://twitter.com/Youblacksoul/status/1535594415774912512?t=qfCZfuyfXEpFAcmEC-JoCQ&s=19
I don’t have a Twitter account and have no intention of acquiring one, so any tweets requiring login are pretty much pointless. This one is I can see without a login. The first thing I noticed was the RT in the upper right hand corner.
I wonder how many of these images RT is showing?
Presumably you know that Putin has bombarded much of the ethnically Russian city of Mariupol out of existence.
Who gives a crap if there is a RT attached while you post crap from biased sources like Bostock.
You’re a joke
I believe your days of wailing about Ukraine will be coming to a end soon.
The narrative is changing which probably means that peace talks will be held soon since the nazi’s are getting their asses handed to them.
Russia will get what they wanted, something you admitted to when Obama was in office. No NATO on their borders.
greg.
You DO have a twitter account.
You have quite a few.
Dirtbag zelensky is clamoring for more weapons. Shove it dirtbag, you are getting you asses kick by Putin
Your predictions record isnt exactly stellar.
His propensity to embellish is second to none
Greg is sloppy seconds of MSM bullsh!t
I recall telling you Trump’s debt-financed binge would guarantee runaway inflation over 4 years ago. Also, that Trump would lose by a landslide in 2020, that the southwest would dry up and burn due to climate change, that $5 gasoline was inevitable, and that our invasion of Iraq would bleed us dry while Russian and China watched and waited. I’m curious about what predictions you’re referring to. Got some examples?
That is bullshit
anyone can say I told you so without documentation
greg. For you to propaganda-bomb this post over a matter of hours is proof you work for our enemies.
Russia is winning this war, and the conflict was started by your master’s arrogance.
Stop spreading lies.
Obama ran up debt. Trump? Not so much.
Donald Trump Built a National Debt So Big (Even Before the Pandemic) That It’ll Weigh Down the Economy for Years
“The “King of Debt” promised to reduce the national debt — then his tax cuts made it surge. Add in the pandemic, and he oversaw the third-biggest deficit increase of any president.”
If you wonder who number 1 and 2 were, have a look at the article.
pro-pubica
Easily dismissed
Facts remain facts, whether they’re “easily dismissed” by fools or not.
Troll alert
Leftist articles aside, blaming Trump for the debt incurred when COVID hit, Democrats kept the economy closed AND pushed through massive and unnecessary wasteful spending is pretty dishonest, even for you.
Obama plowed $10 trillion into the debt with NOTHING to show for it. It still took Trump to recover the economy. Idiot Biden added $5 trillion (already) and the economy is utterly destroyed.
But neither greg nor michael will honestly discuss the real context of the issues. Their content is to frame it as something else, not bidens fault. It was the hand he was dealt except when he had a winning hand, he discarded three cards and was left with a losing hand.
Obama ran up debt. Not Trump
Biden ran it up even more
Trump leveraged it. Dems lie.
We made billions in tariffs and savings with Trump.
And it never happened. Then idiot Biden, thanks to election fraud, came forth, added $5 trillion to the debt practically over night, killed energy independence, production and refining, paid people not to work, destroyed the supply chain and inflation “necessarily skyrocketed”. You can blame idiot Biden’s utter failures on the most successful President (the last duly elected President) in 5 decades.
I predicted if idiot Biden was allowed to destroy this nation, he would. I guess I’m f**king Nostradamus.
06/09/22 – The Putin price hike is real — and huge
Biden wants high prices.
Biden price hike.
Forever.
The tanking economy AND the war in Ukraine is idiot Biden’s responsibility. He caused them and they would not have happened without his policies.
PERIOD.
So if this is what you believe, why did Biden give Putin permission to invade? Didn’t Biden know a “small incursion” could go big? After all Biden was the most experienced man in Washington, DC.
Trump=low oil prices=Putin stays home.
Biden=high oil prices=Putin invades.
Trump=Low inflation, no war, low gas prices, affordable groceries, baby food and tampons available. In other words, everything Democrats hate.
Biden=Fastest presidential disaster in US history. Shortages, supply chain unsolved, war, unabated inflation, high gas and diesel prices, etc.
Joe’s just getting started. He says we are transitioning. How’s it going so far?
I’ll take mean tweets any day over this idiot and his blind followers
Even the NYTs is now reporting that Ukraine is losing the war.
You’d better follow up with headquarters. I think you orders have changed, chump.
Trump told Putin to not invade. Putin didn’t.
Biden told Putin to not invade. He did.
This war is Biden’s fault.
Trump leveraged debt.
Obama and now Biden ran it up.
Gas prices were low under Trump, because the President can control gas prices.
Gas went up under the Biden occupation, and his handlers are trying to seed the silly “Putin” price hike to cover up Biden doing exactly what he said he was going to do: phase out petroleum.
As things collapse, you’ll see more Biden voters admitting they know Biden didn’t win the election as they beg for forgiveness.
Literally NO ONE Is Watching Joe Biden White House Videos – The Viewership Is Abysmal – Pathetic
On Saturday Biden gave a pathetic presentation in New Mexico. Only 2,700 people have since clicked on it. The page has only 150 upvotes. The downvotes are hidden. YouTube won’t report the number of dislikes. They stopped doing this on Biden videos. From the background noise, it sounds like hardly anyone is in attendance at this event as well. This is horrible. Biden has no base! He looks lost.