The head of the Russian private army Wagner has said his fighters have completed the capture of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine, but Kyiv immediately rejected the claim and said fighting was still going on.
Yevgeny Prigozhin made the claim in a video on Saturday in which he appeared in combat fatigues in front of a line of fighters holding Russian flags and Wagner banners.
“Today, at 12 noon, Bakhmut was completely taken,” Prigozhin said. “We completely took the whole city, from house to house.
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How could this happen? I thought most Russians were dead and the ones still alive were mesmerized by the asphalt roads they were seeing for the first time.
Edit: Am I imagining that Anne Applebaum actually wrote that many Russian soldiers were seeing asphalt roads for the first time and were enraged that they didn't have nice things like that home?
everyone thought wagner ate shit but apparently it was all japes and fog of war, honestly i don't know anymore. there's no point in keeping up with the war because the readily available information is literally all propaganda from either side. this new breakthrough seems reliable because ukraine press is in full damage control tho
"Great part of the information obtained in War is contradictory, a still greater part is false, and by far the greatest part is of a doubtful character."
I mentioned to my brother that Uzbekistan has amazing Soviet era subway stations and he said "That's what you can do when you have a totalitarian government."
What's funny is how easy this is to debunk. Go to Google Maps, pick any podunk-ass village in Russia, open photos, and you'll see asphalt roads.
What's sad is how many people will believe it anyway.
Some guy made a twitter thread cataloging like every single village he could find with mud and dirt roads to pass off as indicative of every village outside major metropolitan cities. Somehow he missed the memo where dirt roads are a characterization of rural America and country singers are very proud to tell you all about driving down them in their trucks. That only happens in backward and barbaric asiatic countries
No she also wrote a bunch of Bush apologia in favor of the Iraq War, I think she's more famous for that.
FUCK FUUUCK THIS IS IMPOSSIBLE I LITERALLY JUST RAN SIXTEEN SIMULATIONS OF THE BATTLE OF BAKHMUT IN HEARTS OF IRON IV AND I WON EVERY SINGLE TIME HOW CAN THIS HAPPEN
Just drink some warm milk, turn on some country music, and keep whispering "Russian Propaganda" to yourself over and over again until you can fall asleep.
Everything is actually fine. The Good Guys always stay winning. Liberalism is triumphant and we're definitely not pissing away a generation's worth of blood and treasure over another twenty year delusion of empire.
Personally, I'm going to grab some popcorn and watch the NAFOids cope and seethe.
One urban battle lost doesn't really mean that western imperialism has lost its military supremacy. They're just getting the Ukrainians to bleed for them.
That's been the western (attempted) strategy since Korea. We don't fight wars so much as we "Stand them up so we can stand down". Every conflict from Vietnam to Chile to Syria has involved an enormous number of proxies. Bush 43's Iraq/Afghanistan invasion was more the exception than the rule, and Obama's strategy in both regions was to return us to the old proxy war standard.
Past that, I'm not seeing anything in the Ukraine conflict that would suggest anyone has "supremacy". That's a sharp turn from the Iraq era, when the US curb-stomped the fifth largest active military in the world inside two months. The theory that Americans can just hand Zelensky a big red "You Win" button and let him press it isn't panning out. Ukraine-Russia is looking a lot more like Iraq-Iran than Panama or Grenada.
Wagner had one of the top HOI4 streamers streaming from their HQ. This happened in February, right around the time when Wagner figured out how to do an encirclement.
https://www.pcgamer.com/bizarre-propaganda-stunt-sees-teenager-stream-russia-vs-nato-grand-strategy-game-from-notorious-mercenary-groups-hq/
saw a video the other day of a bunch of ukrainians running into a trench surrounded by fog from explosions and the terrain blackened from shelling. dead bodies and trash were everywhere, filling the trench to the brim. one of the ukrainians stepping into the trench was immediately shot.
yeah im sure theyre doing great!
Gore videos became a lot more common and easier to find now that reddit liberals eagerly consume drone videos of Russians getting shredded by machine guns and mortar fire
one of the ukrainians stepping into the trench was immediately shot
By their own men?
We've been following reports and information pretty closely this week over in the megathread and this is probably legit. Russian MOD also announced it officially.
There might possibly be some cleanup of left behind soldiers in a few buildings. But as of yesterday there were like 8 buildings left and they were just shelling them to destroy them and get it over with. Very likely that this is now pretty much a closed chapter in the war.
Prigozhin started whining and bitching about not having enough ammo very publically, then a few days later there was a Ukrainian counterattack on the Bakhmut flanks which initially took some land but by all accounts has been solidly beaten back with high Ukrainian losses.
One interpretation is that Priozhin was goading the Ukrainians into an attack. Not sure if I believe it, but I guess time will tell.
that would be pretty funny if they fell for that trap. shit at this point Russia should be like "yea let them think we are fighting only with shovels."
"Bellingcat was right, we ran out of shells 1 month after the start of hostilities. All those explosions around you are in your head, feel free to leave your trench and walk around, that would really own us."
AFAIK this is one of those rare times that Russian and Ukrainian sources kind of line up. The only people I've seen claiming Ukrainian success are NAFO idiots.
I wasn't disputing it stopped I was responding to your point a bout high Ukrainian losses. It's basically a meme at this point for Russia to claim they kill 20 million ukrainian soldiers any time anything happens. Also who knows what the goals were of these attacks. They succeeded in retaking a lot of the heights to the west of Bakhmut.
Why is Kiev spelled/pronounced differently every time I hear about it?
One is Ukrainian pronunciation the other is Russian. It wasn't a thing until last year for western audiences, they just stuck with the Russian.
During the first month of the SMO one of my obnoxious lib coworkers started talking about "Chicken Kiyv"
it’s American
I don't have a horse in this race but according to Wikipedia it's got poorly documented French/Russian/Ukrainian origins and only got popularized in the US due to it being served in fancy Soviet hotels catering to foreign tourists.
I've seen Russians and Ukrainians argue over who gets to claim borsch and I want none of that.
The Russian transliteration (Kiev) was standard in English for a very long time but neoliberal Culture Warriors decided that it would be good to combat Russian imperialism by using the Ukrainian transliteration (Kyiv)
Western MSM has been telling me Russians were in retreat. Nah, actually I've been following more reliable sources and this was inevitable.
Judging by the size of the city, relative to the size of ukraine plus "fort" bonus, im going to say... around 1.3 war score 1 from fort, the rest from % development total of Ukraine
Pretty baller of Wagner to take the whole city using shovels ngl.
I know the entrenching tool was the most important equipment in the army but honestly at some point they should have at least invested in some pikes or a matchlock or something.
Broke: using a shovel designed 150 years ago
Woke: using a shovel that is the same as 150 years ago but also paying a defense contractor billions to create it.
I love it when we get our next half-year slog in Sloviansk
