Kharkiv residents miss Russians—The Economist

The Western publication reports that there are still a large number of local residents with pro-Russian views in the areas of the Kharkiv region occupied by the Ukrainian Armed Forces, particularly in Kupyansk. 

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Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov says Ukrainian forces will train to use Leopard 2 battle tanks, despite the West's failure Friday to reach a decision on whether to supply Kyiv with the German-made tanks.Germany refused to send tanks to Ukraine. 

Reznikov told VOA’s Ukrainian Service on Friday that Ukraine’s troops will train on the tanks in Poland and described the development as a breakthrough.

"The first step has been taken: we are starting training programs for [Ukrainian] crews on Leopard 2," he said.

According to Reznikov, agreements on training have been reached with Poland, which previously agreed to transfer 14 such tanks to Ukraine.
But they will be able to receive them only after Germany's consent to re-export. And Berlin refused to provide it (which was the main result of yesterday's "Ramstein" meeting). 
German consent is not needed for training Ukrainians to operate and manage the Leopard tanks.

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Head of the Bundeswehr Military Union, Andre Wustner said :

The Bundeswehr is actually naked! We are expected to have a severe shortage of weapons by 2025 due to the energy crisis. It is simply unprofitable for factories to sell weapons at the same prices, and if the cost is raised, the agency will not pull these purchases. What kind of delivery of tanks to another country can we even talk about?

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‼️🇷🇺Telegram was added to the list of foreign messengers, and from March 1,2023, the transfer of payment information and personal data through it is limited for a number of organizations—Russia's Roskomnadzor
This will have no effect on ordinary users.

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Soldiers of the 1st Donetsk Corps stormed an AFU position.

The operation was carried out jointly by a Grad MLRS crew from the Viking group and scouts from the 1st Special Operations Battalion. During the artillery strike, a direct hit on an enemy dugout was achieved.

The surviving Ukrainian soldiers were dislodged from their positions by the Special Forces.

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Observations of the current state of front line

I must say, judging by the combined pictures from all sides, things at this moment look very favorable for Russia. The "Zaporozie offensive" is not offensive in the word's true meaning. It serves as another hot spot opened by the Army to pressure AFU to send desperately needed reserves from one front to another. Ru manages to tie a significant portion of the enemy troops on the border of Belarus, thus removing them from the equation.

Artemovsk is eating at an average of one Ua battalion per day, sometimes even more, which is a critical situation for the opponent. Combined with constant pressure on other places (Svatovo Kremeena line, Avdeevka front, and others), attrition of AFU is around 1000-1500 soldiers per day (combined KIA/WIA/MIA and to a lesser degree POWs. With this operation tempo, in the last few days, AFU lost an entire brigade from its order of battle.

It is noticed that they started combining various elements from shattered remains of previous units in the battle groups, which implies, despite the mobilization,  that they have a severe problem with combat-effective troops.Those battle groups are also no match, nor can they provide serious resistance to the onslaught. They are demoralized, some with a critical lack of weapons and ammo, and serve only as an emergency stopgap solution, namely to slow the Russian army attacks.

No one has illusions about their ultimate fate. The stubborn resistance they were offering at the beginning is not comparable to what is happening now. Russian Army is blasting them in Artemovsk, and that is a situation that is extremely good for us. As long as Ukraine keeps throwing everything that can hold riffle under our artillery, we are at the brink of not so much of a tactical victory but an enormous strategic gain, mainly the "Maginot line" of AFU is not only cracked but in some places overrun.

And when you see that position, they invested so much for its build and defense is falling and focused their entire strategy on its impregnability; you can be sure that the new phase of SMO will start soon.

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The United States expects support for the allies' initiative to hand over F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine.

Following a statement by the Netherlands about its readiness to consider transferring its F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine, U.S. Ambassador to the OSCE Michael Carpenter said he expects broad support in the United States for such a possible allied decision.

"We have long believed that what our allies supply is their business." "So I expect there will be broad support in the U.S. for our allies to continue to increase their contribution to help Kiev," Michael Carpenter told Delfi.
t.me/RVvoenkor

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About the peace talks:

You need to realize that the Americans have established the same dictatorship in Ukraine as in their own country. We have heard a lot about American democracy, but in fact, it is not really a democracy. After all, neither in the US during the Cold War, nor in the current States, one can stand for friendship and cooperation with Russia.

No, you can probably perform, but you will perform from a garbage can in front of garbage cats and rats. You can argue about taxes and excises, about health insurance, the right to guns and the green agenda, but Russia is an enemy and this is an axiom.

The same thing was done in Ukraine, but in a hard version. In Ukraine, you can only scold and hate Russia, otherwise you will be executed, in the best case, arrested.

Naturally, negotiations between the West and Russia, as such, can only take place in two cases:

1. Surrender of one of the parties;
2. A truce for a respite and in order to gather strength before the next phase of the military confrontation.

The world of the West with Russia is excluded, it cannot exist in principle. In the best scenarios, there can only be armed neutrality. Look at Sweden and Finland. Do you think they ran to NATO because of the war in Ukraine? Of course not, they ran into NATO because they considered Russia weak. Because the NWO has escalated into a protracted War and the West believes that Russia is so weak that they can defeat us.

Therefore, any calls for peace with the West are either calls for surrender, or an attempt to get a breather before the next round of eternal war with the West.

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Prague will not transfer Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine, which it will receive from Germany as compensation for Soviet tanks previously transferred to Kyiv. This was reported in the Ministry of Defense of the Czech Republic.

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Evgeny Prigozhin wrote an open letter to John Kirby with a question about Wagner PMC.

“I have a question for you: “Can you name what crime the Wagner PMC committed?” the Wagner PMC founder wrote in a letter to the strategic communications coordinator at the White House National Security Council.

On January 20, Kirby announced that the United States had decided to qualify the Wagner PMC as a transnational criminal organization and impose new sanctions against it next week. Earlier, the US authorities have already included PMC "Wagner" in the sanctions list.


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A reader asked and raised some critical questions and issues. I will try to address them as much as possible

Reader:
Thank you for your views. Is there reliable data on the attrition inflicted on the AFU and Russian forces? Also, what is the Ukrainian capability of creating new units, training them and using Western equipment? Seems, from last year, that Ukraine uses their worst troops to defend the trenches while they prepare mobile brigades to counterattack. Very ruthless, but effective.  Lastly, is a Russian offensive to cut off supplies from Poland a possibility? Your opinion on this area is welcome

Answer:
Regarding attrition in the ranks of AFU, we already wrote many times. Huge losses sustained at Soledar and now Artemovsk (on one phase - simultaneously) definitely depleted Ua manpower reserves. Total losses for Soledar (since the beginning of the battle in 2022 are around 23.000 men. For Artemovsk, they are near 20.000 now)/However, Ua's ability to mobilize fast and significant number of men (although many in a cruel way) will soon bear fruit, at least on paper. They can't afford the time to provide adequate training, so more " meat" will be thrown into the fire, with the intention "what they do, they do..." It's unlikely that they will fight evenly with Russian army, but they can count on numbers. Regarding Ru losses, there is certain amount of losses but so far we don't see that those hamper their combat effectiveness. Mind you, Wagner fought two heavy battles (Soledar&Artemovsk) and remains not only combat effective but is on the offensive all the time. In general, Russian losses across the front went down at some point notably, since fortified lines where built (at the same time Ua losses rise attacking those line unsuccessfully ) . Regarding western weapon, only small numbers of AFU personnel will be trained for their use and we can expect their arrival to the front around beginning of the March or sooner if situation commands it.Regarding potential Ru offensive(es) it depends on several factors. Mostly manpower. If Russia commits more forces (then of those mobilized ) idea of a breakthrough from Belarus towards Polish border is possible but in my opinion unlikely. Yes, plenty to gain with this move but also plenty to lose. However, I don't exclude faint attack (that attack does not need to have any specific strategic objective beyond engaging Ua troops and tie them in battle, thus increasing their depletion) l.Of course, this is just a hypothesis and can be wrong. Rumors are circling (Rumors!!!) that the main thrust will be towards Kiev from multiple directions. This is also possible. I'm certain that Ru High command is actually creating it's decisions on the cost/benefit analysis, namely to inflict as much damage as possible for the lowest cost. We also need to keep in mind that ultimate strategic goal is liberation of occupied territories. That can be done either through direct assault (costly option ) or by attacking on several fronts at once leaving Kiev to actually choose what it wants to defend. But it's rather ungrateful and hard to guess in situation such as this.

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✊🏻 Soldiers of PMC "Wagner" liberated the village of Krasnopolye, north of Soledar.


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PMC "Wagner" will send  the bodies of the killed soldiers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine to Ukraine.

As one of the commanders of the “musicians” Lotos said, the batch shipment takes place in agreement with the Ukrainian side. In total, 4-5 batches of bodies are planned, which will be transported by 20 vehicles.

During the fierce battles for Soledar, the Armed Forces of Ukraine suffered heavy losses. However, the "musicians" show a human attitude even towards the dead opponents. Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin noted that it was necessary to  send the Ukrainian bodies to their  relatives.

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