Some stunning results from the #ISW:

Neither the Oreshnik ballistic missile strike nor Putin's November 21 statement represent a significant inflection in Russian strike capabilities or likeliness to use a nuclear weapon. Russian forces fire nuclear-capable Iskander ballistic missiles, Kinzhal hypersonic ballistic missiles, and nuclear-capable Kh-101 cruise missiles against Ukraine on a regular basis. Previous Russian missile strikes have targeted industrial and critical infrastructure including within Dnipro City that caused greater damage.[9] The only fundamentally new characteristic of the Russian strikes against Dnipro City on November 21 was the Oreshnik missile itself, which ostentatiously showcased reentry vehicles to amplify the spectacle of the strike and further imply a nuclear threat.[10][11] The West maintains credible deterrence options and Putin's nuclear saber-rattling should not constrain Western officials from choosing to further aid Ukraine. US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director Bill Burns cautioned Western policymakers against fearing Putin's nuclear rhetoric in September 2024, describing Putin as a "bully" who will "continue to saber rattle from time to time."[12]

The full, sorry excuse for “analysis” can be read here: https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-november-21-2024

Institute for the Study of War

A Defense of Taiwan with Ukrainian Characteristics

#Ukraine (and #Israel) are demonstrating that free societies with robust innovation centers and the ability and willingness to support decentralized innovation and creativity as well as highly flexible planning and operations can hold off much larger and, in Ukraine’s case, better resourced adversaries. #Taiwan should take heart from this case study while exploring it closely for approaches that could be used, suitably modified, to defend the Republic of #China.

#ISW

Institute for the Study of War

Putin not interested in negotiations with Kyiv, he strives to destroy Ukrainian statehood - #ISW

Analysts at the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) observe that Russian leader Vladimir #Putin is showing a clear lack of interest in a negotiated #ceasefire, remaining intent on #destroying #Ukraine's statehood

Quote: "Russian President [sic] Vladimir Putin continues to communicate that he is uninterested in a negotiated ceasefire and is committed to achieving his goal of destroying Ukrainian statehood."

https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2024/11/1/7482413/

#Colonialism #RussianAggression #RussianWarCrimes #WarCrimes

Putin not interested in negotiations with Kyiv, he strives to destroy Ukrainian statehood – ISW

Analysts at the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) observe that Russian leader Vladimir Putin is showing a clear lack of interest in a negotiated ceasefire, remaining intent on destroying Ukraine’s statehood.

Pity.

https://inv.nadeko.net/watch?v=LctLxeOTahQ

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-october-20-2024

#ISW #Russia

Monty Python - People Falling Out of High Buildings

Two employees witness the after effects of a company Board meeting. From the film "And Now for Something Completely Different".

Kursk incursion presents Kremlin with border dilemma, ISW says

The #ISW said Russia had treated its border with Ukraine as a "dormant #frontline," that clearly did not have the level of military resources required to defend against such an attack.

"Russia's prolonged treatment of the international border area as a dormant frontline is a strategic failure of imagination," it said.

The Ukrainian military launched a surprise incursion across the border into Kursk Oblast on Aug. 6, bringing regular Ukrainian forces into Russia for the first time.

Although reinforcements sent by Moscow have begun to arrive on the battlefield, Ukraine has reportedly continued to advance farther into #Kursk Oblast.

https://kyivindependent.com/kursk-incursion-presents-kremlin-with-border-dilemma-isw/

#StopRussianAggression #Ukraine

Kursk incursion presents Kremlin with border dilemma, ISW says

The ISW said Russia had treated its border with Ukraine as a "dormant frontline," that clearly did not have the level of military resources required to defend against such an attack.

... Carl Gershman and Allen Weinstein. These were Reagan's advisers and the founders of the #Endowment. They very clearly calculated that official "assistance to the spread of #democracy" is good #business in itself, and it was with their firm hand that all these endless Institutes for the Study of War and Peace began to proliferate in the USA.

from

William Kristol and Robert Kagan

#ISW #NED

Specific Authors of the Ukrainian War

By Marat Khairulin

#ISW
Iran Update, July 27, 2024
Jul 27, 2024 - ISW Press

The IDF assessed that Lebanese Hezbollah conducted a rocket attack that killed at least ten Israeli children and “youths” and wounded 30 other Israeli civilians in Majdal Shams, Golan Heights, on July 27. The IDF assessed that Hezbollah conducted the attack using at least 40 projectiles in three separate barrages. Hezbollah denied responsibility for the attack. The rockets struck a soccer field in Majdal Shams, which is a Druze village in the Golan Heights. Israeli media reported that many the wounded civilians are children. Israeli media reported that this attack caused the most civilian casualties in northern Israel since October 2023.

Druze in occupied Golan tell Israel: ‘No war in the name of our children’

Druze in occupied Golan tell Israel: ‘No war in the name of our children’

Twelve Druze children were killed in a missile strike on Saturday that Israel blames on Hezbollah

What else will #NATO and Western supporters of the fighting do if #Ukraine is defeated?
Narrative changes

#ISW

Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, July 30, 2024
Jul 30, 2024 - ISW Press

Russian forces conducted five platoon- to battalion-sized mechanized assaults in western Donetsk Oblast on July 29 and 30. Such localized mechanized pushes are likely the manifestation of Russia's forecasted summer offensive—Russian forces likely lack the wider operational capacity to mount a separate renewed offensive operation in Donetsk Oblast or elsewhere on the front this summer. Geolocated footage published on July 29 indicates that Russian forces marginally advanced on the southwestern outskirts of Kostyantynivka (southwest of Donetsk City) during a reinforced-battalion sized mechanized assault.

SITREP 7/31/24: Die Welt Reveals Dire NATO Camp Outlook for Ukraine

This week brings us another new batch of damning articles from the pro-Ukrainian Western media.

Yesterday we had this media wave:
* Russian planes ‘destroyed’ in major attack on Morozovsk airfield - Telegraph
* [https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/ukraine-drones-destroy-six-russian-warplanes-in-one-of-its-biggest-attacks-of-war/ar-BB1l7lcB](Ukraine drones destroy six Russian warplanes in one of its biggest attacks of war) - The i
* Ukraine claims it destroyed Russian warplanes in one of its biggest drone attacks of the war - AP
* Russia-Ukraine war live: 20 members of Russian airfield personnel killed or injured in drone attack, Kyiv says - Guardian
* Ukraine war latest: Ukraine strikes airfields in Russia, destroying or damaging 19 warplanes, sources say - Kyiv Independent
* OVERNIGHT ONSLAUGHT Ukraine launches massive drone attack destroying six planes & killing 20 Russian troops as ’60 explosions’ rock airbase - The Sun

The #Russia claim of no significant damage has been confirmed by the anti-Russian Institute for the Study of War:

#ISW has yet to find any visual evidence that Ukrainian forces have damaged or destroyed aircraft or infrastructure at any of the four Russian airbases targeted by drones on the night of 4-5 April.

Such news cycles of fake claims of alleged Ukrainian successes are a major reason why some in the western public still believe that the #Ukraine can win the war.

Source

Russian planes ‘destroyed’ in major attack on Morozovsk airfield

Ukraine has tried to dent Moscow’s power to strike over the border, by targeting military facilities used to launch long-range missions

Denying Russia’s Only Strategy for Success

#ISW #Russia

Institute for the Study of War

#MoD & #ISW #Analysis

Wait a second, so the completely dead, battered, beaten and defeated, poor Russian army, who—according to MSM—had had 95% casualties thus far, is suddenly able to muster 3 entire full-fledged field armies just for the task of securing the Polish border? That is a veritable universe of difference with what’s allowed for public consumption.

The Russians have expanded their army’s structure to fight the war and have indicated their intention of retaining the larger structure after the war.[5] They could readily station three full armies (the 18th Combined Arms Army and the 25th Combined Arms Army newly created for this war and the 8th Guards Combined Arms Army) on the borders of Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, and Romania.[6]

In fact, it’s absolutely dizzying what ISW now claim Russia will be able to muster along the entire NATO front:

Where are all these hundreds of divisions suddenly coming from? Ah, but you see, that’s the power of propaganda. It only goes to show that virtually everything we see is just grist meant for the public consumption mill, intentionally designed and targeted propaganda meant to downplay Russian forces in every way conceivable—from their quantity to quality, to everything in between.

But the real planners, the gray eminences behind the curtain, see what they conceal from us—massive, unprecedented Cold War-era Russian buildups that are not being attritioned in any appreciable way in Ukraine.

source
#US #EU #NATO #UKRAINE #RUSSIA

What inspired us to begin reporting. We were getting our news from ISW, until we did our research.
#Victoria's #ISW #Secret
·

I’m the sort of person who can’t stand getting ‘expert analysis’ from the same people who lied to me the last time. When I see a war article on the BBC, Fox, CNN, or MSNBC, I know I need to do my own research. When I see that all the MSM agrees on something, I know it’s either true, or it’s some next level narrative.
Read full story

Geolocated footage published on October 13 indicates that Russian forces marginally advanced north of a waste heap two kilometers northwest of Avdiivka.[42] Several Russian milbloggers, including a Kremlin-affiliated milblogger, claimed that Russian forces abandoned previously occupied positions on the waste heap for an unspecified reason on October 13.

#ISW #Russia #Ukraine

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-october-14-2023

Institute for the Study of War

Stop this war
An analysis of the counteroffensive and the narratives pertaining to it.
more
#Ukraine #Russia #ISW #Illusions

Ukrainian forces may be able to achieve an operationally significant breakthrough in the southern frontline if several key assumptions hold. A significant Ukrainian success will be more likely if:

1) Russian forces do not have the necessary reserves or combat power to maintain Russian defenses in western Zaporizhia Oblast;

2) Ukrainian forces retain enough combat power to continue pushing after exhausting Russian combat power; and

3) Russian defensive positions behind the current battle area are not as heavily mined or well prepared as the fortifications that Ukrainian forces have breached.

1) seems to be the case
2) who knows but them?
3) the big question

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-september-24-2023

#ISW #Ukraine #Russia

Institute for the Study of War

What a nonchalant way of getting rid of one's hooligans:

The Russian “Hispaniola” Volunteer Reconnaissance Assault Brigade – a volunteer formation composed of Russian radical soccer fans and operating in the Bakhmut direction – reported that Ukrainian forces struck the brigade’s headquarters near Svitlodarsk (20km southeast of Bakhmut City). The “Hispaniola” Brigade added that the strike resulted in the destruction of the headquarters, the loss of several vehicles, and casualties. The “Hispaniola” Brigade claimed that it continues to fight in the Bakhmut direction, is deploying additional personnel, and is recruiting more volunteers.

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-september-20-2023

#ISW #Russia

Institute for the Study of War

Leave no-one behind.

Wagner Group financier Yevgeny Prigozhin and founder Dmitry Utkin reportedly died after Russian forces shot down an aircraft transporting senior Wagner commanders over Tver Oblast. The Russian Federal Aviation Agency (Rosaviatsiya) reported on August 23 that all the passengers – Yevgeny Prigozhin, Dmitry Utkin, Sergei Propustin, Yevgeny Makaryan, Alexander Totmin, Valery Chekalov, Nikolai Matyuseev – died in the crash along with all three crew members.

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-august-23-2023

#ISW #Russia #AlPutino

Institute for the Study of War

Gennady Lopyrev, a former lieutenant general in the Russian Federal Protection Service (FSO), who was serving a sentence for bribery in a penal colony in Ryazan Oblast, Russia, died on August 16. The chairman of the Public Monitoring Commission of Ryazan Oblast, Viktor Boborykin, did not provide the cause of Lopyrev’s death, but a Russian insider source claimed that Lopyrev was “unexpectedly” diagnosed with leukemia on August 14 after suddenly complaining of shortness of breath despite normal health indicators. The insider source claimed Lopyrev was “the keeper of secrets” related to the construction of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s Black Sea residence in Gelendzhik, often referred to as “Putin’s Palace.”

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-august-17-2023

#ISW #Russia #leukemia

Institute for the Study of War

I'm wondering, #ISW, for which nation the blot in the top left corner stands. Great Anchorage perhaps?

#Iran #Russia

Another one bites the dust:

The head of one of the largest suppliers of surveillance equipment to Russian special services died on July 22. Russian law enforcement found “IKS Holding” Head Anton Cherepennikov dead in his office on July 22 and later claimed that Cherepennikov suffocated during a xenon gas therapy session.

#ISW #Russia