Could be that after the airbases were attacked they just don't have the means to do that ATM besides scrambling a bunch of fighters from Cyprus to raid Beirut. I guess we'll see.
FWIW, their SG was also assassinated in 1992 and occupation papers were saying that Hezbollah was finished.
Welp, what's done is done. The question is what comes next. All out regional war tomorrow?
Wha-? No, it didn't. DPP support collapsed because people wanted a non-DPP party but also cared who it was. Why do you think KMT and TPP even agreed on a joint ticket (even though it didn't come to fruition ultimately), in the first place? TPP's call was pointless as one of their goals was bringing down DPP. In the end, the votes actually show the KMT made significant gains in the legislature, that isn't indicative of people wanting a non-KMT party.
Ha, that actually depends on who you ask. In the view of mainland Chinese hawks, it's a positive because this hastens reunification in their mind. In the view of pro-engagement with mainland voters (the 60% of voters in the opposition), it's no doubt a negative because they have to deal with DPP's shit economic management and the dread of a possible unfrozen civil war. Western media will think it's positive because they come to the opposite conclusion as you and think that the goal of independence has strengthened.
While it's true that they're more appealing to the younger crowd, that only applies to KMT. Young voters are actually overwhelmingly for TPP nowadays and I think that's due to how shit DPP have been at managing the economy and the whole extending military service thing. In any case while DPP can be happy, they can't be too happy since they lost their majority in the legislature and also a large chunk of votes outright.
Eh, KMT are also US compradors though, just less obvious about it. Takeaway should be that while DPP won the presidency, they lost their majority in the legislature. When it comes to mainland relations, TPP and KMT are a lot less hostile toward the mainland, so I expect they'll be quite united when it comes to addressing that issue.
The guy was already retired for over 7 months so assassinating him was pretty pointless. If Xi was worried about him restraining power why not do it during the 10 years where he actually had influence? Yeah, there's conspiracies about his death floating about in the country but that just means the assassination hypothesis is even more absurd. Why would anyone risk a public backlash for essentially no gain?
Yeah, but I was confused as to why you mentioned the queen
Wasn't this last year's crash?
At this point, who the fuck knows what Russia is doing. I'm just gonna wait a few days to see what their true response is going to be.
What I don't really understand is why there's been so little fighting coming from Russia. Ukraine didn't retreat like Russia did in the same situation, they fought to the death for those cities.
EDIT: Saw this on telegram. Might be true or a cope answer (this seems more likely):
There was an official comment of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation about what is happening:
In order to achieve the goals of the NMD, a decision was made to regroup troops in the areas of Balakleya and Izyum in order to build up efforts in the Donetsk direction. Within three days, an operation was carried out to curtail and transfer the Izyum-Balakliya group of troops to the territory of the DPR. A number of distracting and demonstration activities were carried out with the designation of the real actions of the troops. In order to prevent damage to the troops of the Russian Federation, a powerful fire defeat was inflicted on the enemy using aviation, missile troops and artillery. The RF Armed Forces destroyed more than 2,000 Ukrainian and foreign fighters, as well as over 100 pieces of armored vehicles and artillery in three days.
Where exactly the new lines of defense will pass is still unclear. But in fact, in addition to Balakleya and Izyum, one can expect the abandonment of a significant part of the controlled territory of the Kharkiv region.
The silver lining for Russia here is that by retreating they preserved their manpower. They could still contest the captured areas in the coming days if more reinforcements arrive from either elsewhere in the LPR or across the border.
From what I've seen, Russians still control the eastern side of Kupyansk over the river. From the sources I follow, I haven't seen reports of Izyum actually falling. All I know is that there's some fighting going on a few km from Izyum and on the outskirts of Lyman. Lyman reportedly being shelled, but troops there still holding. We'll see if the reserves transferred yesterday are enough to hold the town.
EDIT: OK, now I'm seeing some reports that Russia is leaving Izyum. FURTHER EDIT: Conflicting reports going on. Another source says Izyum has not been abandoned.
For me, outcome depends on how many troops Russia can rotate to Kharkov ultimately. I've seen reports from Ukraine side that Ukraine has lost a staggering 5000 men in the 3 day counteroffensive, but they're using about 50k men in this operation. If Russia can match this number, they'll probably hold and reclaim the lost territory. It seems that this is do or die for Ukraine and if they fail to make gains in Kupyansk or Izyum, the sheer personnel loss might spell the end of their resistance in the northern part of the country.
Interesting to note that they lost this much while saying that they outnumbered the Russian garrison 10 to 1.
In addition to the troops that entered overnight, as of a few minutes ago, I'm seeing reports of more Russian troops being transferred to Kharkov.
EDIT: Pretty large convoy moving to reinforce Izyum.
The problem with cutting the Izyum-Kupyansk road is that it really only stops supply from Kupyansk to Izyum. Russia can still supply Izyum via the roads north of Lyman. They can try attacking Izyum or crossing the river to solve that problem but it doesn't seem like they have the forces to do that and assault Kupyansk.
Eh, even if it wasn't destroyed, the atmosphere of fear these types of news creates is still desirable, especially if it leads to record lines at airports for flights booking it to NYC