RUSSIA
Watch “Russian Army pierces Ukraine’s defence in Luhansk; Zelensky’s men retreat 3 KMS
Vladimir Putin’s troops have broken through the defences of Ukrainian forces in several parts of the Luhansk region, said the Russian Defense Ministry. According to the Russian Defense Ministry, “the Ukrainian troops retreated to a distance of up to 3 kilometres from the previously occupied lines.” According to Moscow, even Ukraine’s more fortified second line of defence could not withstand the Russian military’s breakthrough.Kyiv has been reporting increasingly heavy Russian shelling along the frontline. Ukraine’s President, Volodymyr Zelensky, said that the situation is extremely tough now as a “fierce battle is being fought for every metre of Ukrainian land.”
[Ed.: The Ruskies have been trying to dissuade Ukraine from getting decimated for over 10-years to no avail. Now, it’s show time! NATO and the US are the bad guys, and are continuing to do everything possible to provoke WWIII.]
Putin’s missile storm hits Zaporizhzhia; Ukraine’s major ammunition depot destroyed Hindustan Times
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s army is savagely hammering Ukrainian troops. In the midst of the raging battle for Donetsk, Russian troops have now inflicted significant damage on Ukrainian Army units in the Zaporizhzhia region. Russia’s ferocious missile storm has hit Levadnoye and Orekhov cities in the Zaporizhzhia region just a day after Putin set a “deadline.” According to the Russian Defense Ministry, Moscow’s forces have also obliterated a major Ukrainian ammunition depot near Zaporizhzhia’s Malinovka. Other than Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk, a barrage of Russian missiles has also hit Kupyansk, a city in the Kharkiv region of Ukraine.
Do ordinary Russians support Putin’s war? BY JADE MCGLYNN
Western analysts are spreading a false narrative
February 15, 2023 – If you were a Russian mother, would you rather believe that your son gave his life heroically fighting Ukrainian Nazis, or that he died butchering innocent civilians? The former, most likely. It is not easy to admit — to oneself or to others — that you live in a country that has murdered tens of thousands of Ukrainians, or that has pointlessly sacrificed the lives of its own people.
Yet it is one thing to turn a blind eye to the truth, and quite another to be “brainwashed”. The West is fixated on the idea that “Putin’s war” is not Russia’s, and that the Russian people only support it because they have been “zombified” by a totalitarian regime. But this is missing the wood for the trees.
Independent polling claims that 75% of Russians approve of the war, a figure that has been relatively stable since March 2022 — despite a slight wavering when mobilisation was introduced in September. Similarly, Putin’s current approval rating remains at 80%, some 15-20% higher than it was before the invasion. Of course, opinion polls conducted in an authoritarian country must be treated with caution: a June 2022 study by political scientists Philipp Chapkovski and Max Schuab estimated that between 10-15% of Russian respondents may have lied to pollsters about supporting the war. But that still leaves a majority in favour.
Scott Ritter – Russia’s Objectives in Ukraine [20:03] Douglas Macgregor Col
Scott Ritter – Russia’s Certain Victory in the Conflict [11:13] Douglas Macgregor Col
