The Russian dirty bomb agitprop hit a new low today: The photos MFA Russia used for their "dirty bomb in Ukraine" claims are actually from 2010 and made by the Slovenian Radioactive Waste Management Authority. pic.twitter.com/GQdC318AwZ — Bakhti Nishanov (@b_nishanov) October 26, 2022 I realize the war isn’t going well, but make an effort! I …
War for Ukraine Day 245: The Russians Have Reached the Sloppy Agitprop StagePost + Comments (107)
Dear Ukrainians, I wish you health!
Today I held a big meeting on the energy situation. The participants were government officials, the Office, energy companies, and the State Emergency Service. The topics were diverse. It was recovery of damaged objects, protection of generation, ensuring people’s access to energy.
The state of nuclear and hydrogen generation was analyzed separately, as well as the situation at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant and the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant.
Russian terrorists have created such difficult conditions for our energy workers that no one in Europe has ever seen or encountered. There were no such threats that our specialists are forced to overcome now. And they overcome them with honor.
I thank all the workers in the energy sector, our rescuers, repair crews, representatives of local governments, private companies who work efficiently enough to maintain the stability of our energy system despite all threats.
In many cities and regions of Ukraine, emergency blackouts happen, power consumption has to be limited. But we all have to remember one thing: we need victory over Russia in the energy sphere as well.
No matter what the enemy does, our task is to break its plans and protect Ukraine. And this is not just someone’s task, it concerns not only energy workers or anyone else. Conscious energy consumption is now needed by all Ukrainians. Please choose your own scheme for limiting electricity consumption while there is a shortage in the general power system.
The situation on the front line has not undergone significant changes. The fiercest battles are in Donetsk region: Bakhmut direction, Avdiyivka. The craziness of the Russian command is now most visible there: day after day for months, they drive people there to death, concentrate the maximum power of artillery strikes there. All our soldiers who hold positions in these directions in Donetsk region are simply heroes.
Active actions in other directions continue. Today I would like to mention the soldiers of the 25th Airborne Brigade for their bravery in liberating the occupied territories in Luhansk region.
In general, we are strengthening our positions everywhere at the front, reducing the capabilities of the occupiers, destroying their logistics and preparing good news for Ukraine.
Today, during the day, the air raid alerts sounded several times over most of the territory of our state. The Air Force has results – another helicopter of the occupiers was shot down, another drone.
By the way, the total number of downed Russian helicopters is already approaching 250. The Russian occupiers have already lost as much equipment – aircraft and other – as most of the world’s armies simply do not have and will never have in service. Russia will not be able to recover these losses. I thank all our fighters for such a gradual and irreversible demilitarization of the enemy.
We continue to do everything possible to free our people from Russian captivity. Today, we can finally announce the release of ten more Ukrainians. Our exchange team is working around the clock.
And I want to emphasize once again that any of our front-line units can speed up exchanges by capturing the occupiers. The more Russian soldiers are in our exchange fund, the sooner we will return Ukrainians home from Russia.
The President of Guinea-Bissau visited Kyiv today. He also chairs the Economic Community of West African Countries. In fact, he is a representative of 15 African countries that are part of this community. And this is the first African leader who visited our country after February 24.
In general, we are consistently expanding our contacts with Africa, filling them with new content. Many negotiations and agreements are taking place for the first time in our history. It is very important that on this continent, where the Kremlin’s influence is traditionally significant, they hear the Ukrainian position and know the full truth about what is really happening. We provide it.
We also work every day to protect our grain export initiative. It is obvious that Russia intends to exacerbate the global food crisis again, to bring back the threat of large-scale famine. And this, in particular, is the responsibility of all our partners – after all, to guarantee food security and end this dirty Russian game with hunger.
Today, due to deliberate Russian inhibition of our food exports, the number of ships waiting for the opportunity to meet contractual obligations is already 175. And this is not just some trade problem. This is the deterioration of access to food for millions of people and the threat of an even greater increase in the prices of essential products on different continents – both in Africa, and in Asia, and in Europe. If, after all, Russia succeeds in the negative scenario, it will end in a new large-scale migration crisis.
Russia as a terrorist state is a terrorist in everything and deserves daily increasing international pressure on it.
I am grateful to those leaders and those politicians who understand and ensure this. I am grateful, in particular, to the Senate of Poland, which decided to officially recognize Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism. And such decisions should be adopted by the majority of the countries of the world – Russia itself, by its actions, leaves no alternative.
I thank everyone who helps us fight against Russian terror!
Glory to all who fight and work for the freedom of Ukraine!
Glory to Ukraine!
Oh goody, the Russian security council has discovered QAnon!
Meanwhile in Russia: since Putin's phony "denazification" never made any sense, now Russia's Security Council is absurdly calling for the "desatanization" of Ukraine. How embarrassing. pic.twitter.com/hxlLCAEBdD
— Julia Davis (@JuliaDavisNews) October 25, 2022
Satanic panic for everybody!
And then DougJ appeared…
Guys, I know it’s a parody account and I love it)
— Illia Ponomarenko 🇺🇦 (@IAPonomarenko) October 26, 2022
Here’s former NAVDEVGRU Squadron Leader Chuck Pfarrer’s most recent assessments of the situations in Izium and Bakhmut:
IZIUM/1145 UTC 26 OCT/ UKR hits ammo dump at Svatove. RU combat engineers reported to be constructing defensive positions west of P-66 HWY. Forward Edge of the Battle Area (FEBA) reported stable. pic.twitter.com/goqE0ia1tn
— Chuck Pfarrer | Indications & Warnings | (@ChuckPfarrer) October 26, 2022
BAKHMUT/1140 UTC 26 OCT/ RU attacks on Ivanhard and Bakhmutse repelled by UKR units. RU continues missile, aviation and artillery attacks on Bakhmut. UKR sources report the destruction of an enemy battlefield radar installation and a RU air defense complex pic.twitter.com/pzpKTazZqq
— Chuck Pfarrer | Indications & Warnings | (@ChuckPfarrer) October 26, 2022
Ukrainian Air Defense is on the hunt!
Ukraine shot down 19 Iranian-made Russian kamikaze drones on 26 October, according to the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense pic.twitter.com/CYrs4LcR0w
— Business Ukraine mag (@Biz_Ukraine_Mag) October 27, 2022
Reuters managed to get their hands on a batch of Russian military documents left behind Balakliia:
BALAKLIIA, Ukraine – The Russian soldiers had fled weeks before. But they left their traces everywhere.
Concrete steps led into the basement of their hastily abandoned headquarters in this small riverside town in eastern Ukraine. A bunker smelling of damp lay behind a steel door marked “Command Group.” Papers, some charred, were stuffed into a furnace. Others were scattered across the floor.
In a floral notebook, an unnamed staff officer left a sketch of a cartoon soldier and mused about going home. The book’s 91 handwritten pages contained other information, too: coordinates of Russian intelligence units, records of calls from commanders, details of battles, men killed and equipment destroyed. And accounts of a breakdown in morale and discipline.
In all, the bunker yielded thousands of pages of documents. Reuters reviewed more than a thousand of them. They detail the inner workings of the Russian military and shed new light on events leading up to one of President Vladimir Putin’s most stinging battlefield defeats: Russia’s chaotic retreat from Ukraine’s northeast in September.
In the weeks before that defeat, Russian forces were struggling with surveillance and electronic warfare. They were using off-the-shelf drones flown by barely trained soldiers. Their equipment for jamming Ukrainian communications was often out of action. By the end of August, the documents show, the force was depleted, hit by death, desertions and combat stress. Two units – accounting for about a sixth of the total force – were operating at 20% of their full strength.
The documents also reveal the increasing effectiveness of Ukraine’s forces and offer clues to how the eight-month-old war might unfold, with Russia now under intense pressure on the southern front around the Black Sea coast. In the weeks before their retreat, Russian forces around Balakliia, a town 90 kilometres south of Kharkiv, came under heavy bombardment from HIMARS rocket launchers, recently supplied by the United States. The precision missiles repeatedly hit command posts.
A Russian officer who served in the Balakliia force for three months, described to Reuters a sense of menace hanging over the occupiers. One of his friends bled to death in early September after a Ukrainian strike on a command post in a nearby village.
“It’s a game of roulette,” said the officer, who asked to be identified by his military call sign Plakat Junior 888. “You either get lucky, or you are unlucky. The strikes can land anywhere.”
The Kremlin press service referred questions for this article to the Defence Ministry, which didn’t comment. Russia has said previously its military has everything it needs to fight the war.
Much, much, much more at the link. Including screengrabs and pictures.
Your daily Patron!
Only today, in the direction of Balaklia, 11 sappers were injured, and one died. A few days ago, in Kharkiv direction two dead and 4 in hospital.
— Patron (@PatronDsns) October 26, 2022
Here’s the link to the United24 site. You know what to do if you are so inclined!
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