Vladimir Putin turns 70 today. The best gift Putin could give the world would be his retirement, whether in the usual sense or the intelligence agency sense of that word. However, that seems unlikely. So we’ll just have to hope that this is Putin’s last birthday in a position of power, and check to see what gifts the Russian military brought him that day. If we all keep Putin in mind today, maybe we can achieve a Scanners moment.
Anyway, here’s Russia’s big birthday victory for Putin: In the town of Pisky, which Russia has been attacking daily for months, they made a breakthrough, allowing the Russian forces to advance… by two blocks. This is a big problem for Russia. Pisky is, after all, 2 kilometers from the city of Donetsk, where they started on February 24.
But even if the gain is both insignificant and tiny, it’s worth watching what Russia is doing now as it hopes to advance into the next town, another mile down the same road.
Russia enters every village destroying every house in that village. This is their strategy. There is no indication that there are Ukrainian troops in these buildings. There are no signs of military vehicles in the streets or yards. They don’t even pretend there is. Russia just go block by block and convert all house in rubble. Which sort of explains why they’re progressing so slowly.
Ukraine is working to defeat the Russian army. Russia is working to erase the Ukrainian nation.
Meanwhile, Russian claims that Makiivka is still being held in Lugansk Oblast turn out to be a lie. The city and the critical road junction to the east are under Ukrainian control. And, as always, Ukrainian troops know there’s only one sure way to keep their boots clean during mud season.
As for what is happening in Kherson and Lugansk, I don’t have enough new information to update the maps at this time. Although Ukraine has eased operational security for the essentially non-contact promenade in northern Kherson, now that it is engaged with Russian forces in a real fight to advance, this dry op has become difficult again. You can see that the areas we see in today’s videos (Podoly, Makiivka and Hlushkivka) are places where sources reported their release at least two or three days ago. As long as the battle is fought at close range and the Ukraine fights its way past the Russian positions, don’t expect to get the kind of instant update we’ve had for the past three days.
At Bakhmut, Russia seems to have made perhaps a bigger advance than that of Pisky. Some attack directions and bombardment positions announced on either side give the impression that Russia has occupied the town of Odradivka. Russia had claimed this location two days ago, but this was one of a string of more than a dozen times they have made this claim. However, this time it may be true. I will add a map of the Bakhmut region in the next update.
The Russians kidnapped entire villages, starved them and ate their dogs
Euromaidan Press reports that the Russian occupation forces in the villages of Chernihiv abducted and held hostage hundreds of civilians, including children and infants. At one location, they locked nearly 400 people in a school basement, held them there for almost a month, and gave them so little food that the children were on the verge of starvation. Locals interviewed confirmed that Russia was practicing torture on some of those they detained, including horrifying graphic details of actions Russia took in an attempt to force people to abandon the location of Ukrainian forces. There are other things they did that should be high on the list of war crimes.
“It was awful that the [grand]the child was starving, and you could not give [him anything]“recalls Tamara. “They ate our meat, our cheese… They gave us patties from their packets of croquettes and a spoonful of dough. It was for the whole day.
While the people in the basement were starving, the Russian occupiers ate the chickens, pigs, “and even dogs” remembers Tamara.
The Russians would rather eat dogs than their own military rations.
Sanna Marin gives the only correct answer
Elon Musk should take notes.
amazing scrap heap of Russian armor in Lyman
Oryx is crying everything he had to catalog the last days.
Liberation Theater
It’s Podoly, southeast of Kupyansk, and we know Ukraine liberated it for several days now. Still, I like this picture.
Hlushkivka was about the last place along the eastern bank of the Oskil River to be confirmed as liberated, connecting the forces descended from Kupyansk with those working north from Lyman and Borova.