generalspeaking

So assured and entitled is Vladimir Putin of his right to invade Ukraine for the express (albeit not expressed) purpose of illegally pursuing Russia's territorial imperative to return to the glory days of the USSR, that he is taken aback and incredulous that the Ukraine that he imagined would just roll over and submit to Russian aggression, but immediately began their counterattack to prevent the Kremlin's aspiration toward a Greater Russia, and he has engaged in a no-holds-barred scorched-Earth strategy that destroys every town, village and city by aerial assault before sending in Russian troops.

He is aggrieved and furious that Ukraine has dared to do what Russia has done with aplomb; sent rockets and armed drones across the border to target Russian cities -- going so far as to embarrass Moscow when some of those weapons have reached as far as Moscow itself. Ukraine's success in giving as good as it gets has seen the sinking of Russian warships, the striking of critical oil depots and electrical stations, infuriating the Russian military and their apoplectic leader with incredulity. 

Yet despite the courage of Ukraine military forces, overwhelmed by a force whose numbers dwarf their own, and a huge, disposable stockpile of weaponry as opposed to Ukraine's own dangerously dwindling firepower, Russia, at least at the present is seen to once again temporarily gaining the upper hand in a war of attrition. A situation that could, and likely will turn on that veritable dime as the weapons meant to shore up Ukraine military's arsenal begins to arrive in  promised numbers from its Western and East European allies.

The attacks that Moscow launched in the Kharkiv region was a direct response to its own vulnerability to attacks by Ukrainian shelling in Russia's Belgorod region, according to Putin himself. While Ukrainian troops fight to halt Russian advances in the Kharkiv region, President Zelenskyy signed laws Friday that would allow prisoners to join the military, while increasing fines five-fold for draft dodgers in a controversial mobilization plan reflecting legislation that would allow for "parole from serving a sentence and further enlistment for military service" for some serving time for criminal offences.

Some 8,00 civilians have been evacuated from the week-old flashpoint town of Vovchansk, a mere five kilometres from the border with Russia. Ukraine's military chief Col. Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyl explained Russia's new offensive as having "expanded the zone of active hostilities by almost 70 km", in an effort to force Ukraine to spread its forces and use reserve troops. According to President Zelenskyy, Russian forces advanced 10 km from the border.

 

Russia, emphasized Putin, was prepared for talks based on a draft agreement negotiated by Russia and Ukraine during the Istanbul talks of 2022. Any peace agreement that Russia would agree to would simply cement Russia's territorial gains and it is beyond obvious that Ukraine would never put its stamp of approval on anything approaching that surrender of its territory. 

Ukraine is holding its own for the present. Ukraine's intelligence services struck Russian military infrastructure sites in Novorossiysk on the Black Sea Coast and in Sevastopol, an operation carried out by drones built in Ukraine to target Russian Black Sea Fleet vessels. For its part, the Russian Defence Ministry claimed that air defences had shot down 51 Ukrainian drones over Crimea, 44 over Russia's Krasnodar region, and 6 over the Belgorod region.

In an earlier attack in Crimea a few days back, at least three Russian fighter jets were destroyed, according to satellite imagery provided by Maxar Technologies, of the airbase.