Replies: @Papi_vergudo

If you want to know how the game is rigged by "High I.Q. Jews" listen to this young American on Leather Apron Club on YouTube.
As for Taiwan, the USA recognises Taiwan as a part of China and that's the reason they do not have and embassey in Taiwan.

The United States approach to Taiwan has remained consistent across decades and administrations. The United States has a longstanding one China policy
 

Replies: @Papi_vergudo

For the first time in eight months, the Russians are on the cusp of taking a Ukrainian city, albeit a small one already abandoned by more than 90% of its prewar population.

Ukrainian defenses in and around the eastern city of Bakhmut are being squeezed by a combination of intense artillery, mortar fire, and airstrikes and a substantial commitment of ground forces, both Russian regulars and fighters of the Wagner private military company.

If and when Bakhmut falls, it may be tempting to ask whether Russian forces are improving, learning from the catalog of mistakes they have made so far in this conflict and finally exploiting their superiority in numbers and firepower.

The answer: probably not.

Mick Ryan, a former Australian general and author of the WarInTheFuture newsletter, says “the Ukrainian Armed Forces might decide that they have achieved all they can by remaining in their defensive locations around Bakhmut, and that force preservation for the battles that follow is more important.”

But a Ukrainian withdrawal does not equal disaster if carried out in an orderly way. “It should be treated as a routine tactic rather than a harbinger of disaster,” Ryan says.

The Ukrainians have used Bakhmut to inflict massive losses on the attacking force: by some estimates at a ratio of 7:1. There comes a moment when it is smarter to withdraw than suffer growing losses and the damaging blow to morale of seeing the surrender of hundreds and maybe thousands of surrounded Ukrainian soldiers.

For the Ukrainians judging that moment is critical.

But for the Russians, taking Bakhmut would not alter the fundamental shortcomings in their campaign. https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/06/europe/russia-ukraine-bakhmut-analysis-intl/index.html
 

Just two days ago I reported that Bakhmut is falling. The Ukrainian soldiers there are outgunned 1 to 10 and die under artillery fire with little chance to shoot back. More reports from the front have since come in. They support my dire view.
* * *
To move out of Bakhmut or to move supplies in one has to cross a 10 kilometer long corridor which is only 6 kilometer wide and completely covered by Russian artillery and ground fire. The results of attempts to run that gauntlet can be read in the Russian Defense Ministry's daily report:

In Donetsk direction, the active action of the 'Yug' Group of Forces and artillery operation have resulted in the elimination of up to 225 Ukrainian personnel, five infantry fighting vehicles, nine armoured fighting vehicles, five pickups, four motor vehicles, one Uragan MLRS, and one D-30 howitzer.

One ordnance depot of 55th Artillery Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU), and one U.S.-manufactured AN/TPQ-37 counterbattery warfare radar have been destroyed near Dachnoye and Chasov Yar (Donetsk People's Republic) respectively.
 

Losing 23 transport vehicles in a day, plus the people in them, is quite severe. It has stopped to freeze in Bakhmut and the fields are now too muddy to drive over them. Here is video of some pickups which tried and got messed up by artillery fire. All roads out are under direct Russian fire. The best way to move in or out is thereby probably a long walk through the muddy fields.

* * *
The soldiers describe the Russian operation as small reconnaissance followed by artillery fire. This is repeated again and again until it has reached the desired result. The very reasonable application of this tactic is why I disregard claims of 'waves or Russian cannon fodder storming forward' or of 'high Russian losses'. They are obviously nonsense:

The older Serhiy says that the enemy likes to send a team of three or four expendable foot soldiers to attack and make the Ukrainians expose themselves by shooting at them. At that point, the more elite forces zero in on the defenders’ position.

Once they begin exchanging fire, the Ukrainians are struck with heavier weapons like Russian mortars and rockets from Grad multiple launch rocket systems or BMP infantry fighting vehicles and BTR armored personnel carriers with machine guns.

“They get the positions where we are, establish the coordinates, then they hit us from seven to nine kilometers out with mortars,” as well as from closer by with grenade launchers, says the older Serhiy. “They wait for the house to fall so we have to jump out. The building catches fire and then they try to finish us off.”

“Their birds come out and they chase us with fire,” adds the younger Serhiy, referring to Russian UAVs, like quadcopters and Orlan-10 fixed wing drones that spot distant heavy weapons. “They hit accurately.”

As Russians destroy more and more buildings, Ukrainians keep losing more places where they can reliably take cover. Borys the medic says people have been lost when their entrenched positions collapsed from heavy Russian fire, suffocating them.

“I’ll put it like this, we should get our people out because if we don’t take off, then in the next few weeks, it’s going to be bad,” says Oleksandr. A mortarman named Illia agrees that Bakhmut is “practically encircled.”
 

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2023/03/why-bakhmut-is-falling.html#more
 

Replies: @Post-Postmodernist, @Bill Jones, @ic1000, @HammerJack, @Prester John, @AnotherDad, @William Badwhite, @Jack D, @Colin Wright, @Nicholas Stix, @Papi_vergudo