The Peanut Gallery: Ukraine Sinks Two Ships and Threatens Russia's Crimean Jugular.
Welcome to the Peanut Gallery! Your daily dose of unfounded speculation.
For newcomers, this is an amateur's take on the ISW daily bullet points. I know nothing.
Ukraine’s Main Military Intelligence Directorate (GUR) stated that Ukrainian surface attack drones sank two Russian Black Sea Fleet (BSF) small landing ships in occupied Crimea on November 10.
Ukraine don’t give a fuck about where you hide them boats, son. They’s gonna find ‘em. And they’s gonna sink ‘em. Ain’t no two ways about it.
Today’s catch was small on tonnage, but critical to the RF war machine: a pair of landing ships, which were likely acting as cargo ferries to alleviate their logistics bottleneck. Their loss is further demonstration of Ukraine’s dominance in the Black Sea. What’s more, with the likely permanent disablement of the Chonhar Bridge, Ukraine can (potentially) threaten the E-97 Highway, the only remaining logistical jugular supplying the Kherson theater.
Russian milbloggers continue to overreact to the Russian failure to push Ukrainian forces from positions in east (left) bank Kherson Oblast.
Is it overreacting, ISW? Or is it just sudden awareness of the implication? True, Ukraine only took one town, but the fact that Russia can’t push them out is pretty telling. The Avdiivka offensive isn’t showing any results, Odessa is free, and now Russia losing control of the Dnipro? None of that adds up to anything good.
ISW implies this milblogger is amplifying localized problems specific to their patron military officer in an effort to cultivate political influence for said officer. Ammo is hard to come by on the front, lots of clamor for what little there is, so it’s easy to be drowned out in the noise. It pays to have a megaphone with a couple thousand followers to ensure they are heard.
Russian President Vladimir Putin will reportedly hold his annual live “Direct Line” forum and annual press conference in tandem on December 14, and the event will likely serve to promote his presidential campaign.
What?! Putin is running for President?! I am shocked, shocked I tell you.
After yesterday’s report, I thought he’d cancel this event. And if the rumors are true, then he plans to run a campaign which ignores the war in Ukraine. It’s straight-up, “There is no war in Ba Sing Say.”
But there is a war, and I think the average Russian knows that; one day of ‘live’ questions won’t return legitimacy to these elections. This is a performative act on the part of Putin; one where he drapes himself in democracy’s flesh and capers about on a stage. It’s so important to Putin for the public to buy into this charade because without it there’s no legitimate reason for him to remain in power.
Well, no legitimate reason except violence.
The United Kingdom-led Operation Interflex has achieved its goal of training 30,000 Ukrainian soldiers between June 2022 and December 2023.
Holy hell that’s a lot of people. It’s hard to overstate how important this is for Ukraine. It’s professionalism that’s proven Ukraine’s defining edge in this war, and you can’t be professional without proper training.
And hot damn, United Kingdom. Y’all been crushing it lately.
The UK government stated that Operation Interflex is the largest military training program on UK territory since the Second World War.
Like that is impressive. Well done.
Russian forces are launching significantly smaller and less frequent drone strikes against Ukraine in the past month than in previous months ahead of an anticipated large-scale winter strike campaign.
Less drone strikes likely means a strategic buildup. Russia plans to wait until the coldest part of the winter to attack civilian infrastructure. They want to maximize the efficacy of their terrorism.
Israeli forces advanced to the al Shifa Hospital, where Israel says Hamas maintains a critical command center. Local sources reported heavy armed clashes in the vicinity of the hospital along the Gaza Strip coast. Israeli forces and tanks also advanced inland in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood west of Jabaliya.
Al Shifa will be horrible. Prepare yourself.
Hamas uses underground compounds under the hospital to facilitate entry to headquarters and maintains an internal security control center from which it directs rocket fire and militia fighters, for example.[7] The IDF says that Hamas is using patients and staff at the hospital as human shields.
There are fifty thousand people taking shelter around the hospital, living in tent camps. They likely arrived because the hospital seemed safe. Now, Hamas won’t let them leave. This presents the IDF with a difficult conundrum: how do you disable Hamas, without killing tens of thousands of innocents? I legitimately have no idea, but going in guns blazing isn’t an acceptable answer.
Lebanese Hezbollah (LH) and other Iranian-backed fighters conducted nine cross-border attacks into northern Israel.
Crossboarder attacks by Hezbollah remain relatively constant. One interesting thing to note is that Nasrallah is making another speech tomorrow, no idea why. If he was going to escalate then he’d have done so the other week. There is nowhere near the same hype around this speech as there was for his last one, so I doubt it will contain anything of substance. Not that his last speech contained anything, either. I suppose we’ll know tomorrow.
The IDF reported that unidentified Iranian-backed militants based in Syria were responsible for the November 9 drone attack that hit the Tze’elim Elementary School in Eilat.
A Palestinian hospital gets hit? The world goes crazy. But when Iran drone attacks an Israeli elementary school? Dead fucking silence.
There is a double standard in our culture, one I think we need to acknowledge.
Thank you for enduring today's rant. The Chonhar Bridge Happy Fun Time Betting Pool remains ongoing.
Kremlin-appointed Commissioner on Children's Rights Maria Lvova-Belova advertised several benefit schemes targeting children in occupied Ukraine as part of the "A Country for Children" strategic program.
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'Q' for the Community:
If you could ask Putin one question live on television, what would you ask?