Atheist Forum

Ukrainian Success near Lyman:

Molen noted that the Ukrainian side maintained military secrecy very effectively. Thanks to this, the operation did not attract undue attention at a time when the Russian command still needed to urgently deploy reinforcements.

“This means that the Russian command failed to send reinforcements at the decisive moment two months ago, even though they were clearly needed. Now it is too late to salvage anything. About 200 km²—or even more, since the fighting continues—of territory previously under Russian control has now been lost, with part of it already held by Ukraine.

Source

Once again, the Russian lack of true information harms its whole war effort. They made false reports of success when there were actually failures and by the time high command learned of failure, it was already a disaster. Stupid.

The Ukrainians made the correct but difficult decision to stay silent about it until it was a fait accompli - until it was already done and the Russians couldn't do anything about it.

This is difficult because when these battles happen - the world is naturally inquisitive - they badly want to know who's winning. Russia says they're winning all day every day and update their maps accordingly. Ukraine says nothing, which looks really bad in the eyes of worldwide press. So we get stories worried about the situation. Then later, the truth comes out and we can all breathe a sigh of relief.

Later, we repeat this process. The moral of the story is that no news is not necessarily bad news. Also, the Ukrainian Armed Forces have earned a little bit of trust and have shown their ability to turn the tide often, so it's best to give them the benefit of the doubt when the situation is unclear.

Lost in Space: Russia's Starlink alternative is failing

Russia’s attempts to develop its own version of the Starlink satellite network have failed to reach the right altitude to work properly, it has been reported.

Moscow is rushing to launch satellites called "Rassvet" to replace Starlink connectivity over Ukraine after Russia lost access to the SpaceX-owned communications network.

Meanwhile, Moscow’s version continues to hit snags, with none of the 16 Rassvet satellites from a second batch launched on July 19 reaching an altitude of 340 miles as of August 31, according to data from live satellite tracker N2YO.

These altitudes are short of the intended 540-mile operational altitude, with many only reaching as low as 180 miles; some are experiencing orbital decay, and at least two are heading for reentry into Earth’s atmosphere, according to the latest update from the Institute for the Study of War (ISW).

A few months back, I even posted about one of these satellites burning up in the atmosphere. It was weird, because at roughly the same time, Putin was boasting about Russia launching a bunch of these satellites. And while he's not wrong that these satellites have been launched, the whole stable orbit thing is pretty important, otherwise it's just throwing money into the ocean. Evidently, he forgot to mention that part.

It's incredibly good news for Ukraine that these satellites are failing. The outcome of this war depends on the mass production of cheap drones and the ability to deploy them over great distances through satellite communications. Russia is entirely missing the second half of that equation and as long as it is missing, it's impossible for them to win. Ukraine has both in spades. Ukraine will win, it's just a matter of how bloody it'll be and how long it'll take. Aid to Ukraine shortens the war, aid to Russia lengths it.

US Treasury Secretary - whose lips are permanently stained orange for some reason - somehow blames Ukraine for high gasoline prices

“We are going through an energy shock right now due to both the war in Ukraine, because Ukraine has decided that they want to blow up Russian energy assets and refined properties, so that is creating upward price pressure on a global basis, and the conflict in Iran,” he said.

What a weird way to say "we wanted to buy Russian gasoline but we can't because they got bombed by Ukraine because they bombed Ukraine". And what would Putin do with that money? Sounds like Zelenskyy saved them from making a financially unwise decision.

And finally, gas was less than $3/gallon before Trump attacked Iran. Maybe the moral of the story is don't embark on wars of aggression because you never know how it'll turn out.

There was an incident in Kyiv. A shootout between the HUR and SBU (reportedly with HUR as the aggressor, though this has yet to be definitively determined, it's possible a third party started firing)

Preliminary reports suggest that officers from the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) engaged in a firefight with soldiers from Ukraine’s Military Intelligence (HUR) while working on a case involving a Russian plot against the deputy commander of the Russian Volunteer Corps (RDK).

The SBU is primarily responsible for domestic intelligence and counterterrorism activities, whereas HUR, as part of the military, is primarily tasked with foreign intelligence and reconnaissance.

The RDK is a military unit made up of Russian nationals fighting on behalf of Ukraine against Moscow.

No deaths afaik, but several people were shot and wounded. I'm not gonna lie, this is a really bad look for Ukraine and it's a simply unacceptable for highly important and respected Ukrainian agencies to fight each other. There's a war on and Ukrainians must stand together, otherwise Russia will definitely win.