It is incredible. This is the counter offensive.

There was nothing the Ukraine military could do at the time of Russia's invasion of Crimea. The clash in the Maidan followed by Yanukovych leaving the country due to a very quick occupation force in Crimea happened very quickly. The national military of Ukraine had been disarmed by Yanukovych. There was nothing they could do to move against the occupying force.

Yanukovych had armed the oligarchs with militias to contain any uprising by the people. Ukraine leaders were jailed in Russia at this time, if they hadn't been poisoned to attempt assassination. Ukraine was foundering with power struggles considering all the Russian corruption still within the country. 

This is Ukraine today. Eight long years of being divided. It was going to happen one way of another. There was too much tension within the populations to have this simply be settled by Russia spending money on bridges. I am not surprised there are Pro-Ukrainian forces in Crimea. Russia oppressed these freedom loving people through their Pro-Russian corrupt leadership. Oppression only lasts long enough until it reaches a boiling point and then people find a way to undermine it and get rid of it.

August 17, 2022
By Srishti Singh Sisodia

"Extraordinary" details were provided in advance to the United States President Joe Biden related to the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war, The Washington Post has reported.

On February 24, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the invasion of Ukraine, what it calls a "special military operation" to "demilitarise" and "de-Nazify" its neighbouring country.

The invasion turned into a full-fledged war, causing an outsized impact on the global supply chain and leading to a massive humanitarian crisis. Thousands of people are dead and millions flew away from the conflict zones.

August 19, 2022
By Greg Miller and Catherine Belton

Kyiv - In the final days before the invasion of Ukraine, (click here) Russia’s security service began sending cryptic instructions to informants in Kyiv. Pack up and get out of the capital, the Kremlin collaborators were told, but leave behind the keys to your homes.

The directions came from senior officers in a unit of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) with a prosaic name — the Department of Operational Information — but an ominous assignment: ensure the decapitation of the Ukrainian government and oversee the installation of a pro-Russian regime.

The messages were a measure of the confidence in that audacious plan. So certain were FSB operatives that they would soon control the levers of power in Kyiv, according to Ukrainian and Western security officials, that they spent the waning days before the war arranging safe houses or accommodations in informants’ apartments and other locations for the planned influx of personnel....

It is not worth it Vladimir, leave Ukraine.

 

Have the Ukrainian prisoners of war made it out of their prison camps?

August 19, 2022
By Josh Lederman and Hyder Abbasi

Dnipro, Ukraine - Pro-Ukrainian saboteurs (click here) were involved in the recent spate of explosions at Russian military sites in Crimea, a Ukrainian government official told NBC News.

The series of blasts hit military depots and airbases in the annexed peninsula over the past week, hinting at a growing ability by Ukraine's military or its backers to strike deep behind enemy lines, a development that could shift the dynamics of the war.

Kyiv has stopped short of publicly claiming responsibility for the explosions. The government official spoke on the condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to disclose information about the Crimea strikes to journalists....

August 18, 2022

By Annabelle Timsit, Sammy Westfall, Adam Taylor and Ellen Francis

A series of blasts at Russian military sites in Crimea (click here) this month has put a spotlight on the contested peninsula, which until now had been spared the heavy fighting of the nearly six-month-long war in Ukraine.

Ukrainian officials have told The Washington Post that the explosions — including those at two air bases and an ammunition depot — were the work of Ukraine’s special forces seeking to disrupt Russia’s supply lines. Moscow annexed Crimea in 2014 and has occupied it since.

The Black Sea peninsula, which is about the size of Massachusetts, has long been fought-over by the world’s great powers. For years, it has been a point of contention between Moscow and Kyiv.

As it emerges as a new battlefront in the war, here’s what you need to know about Crimea and its strategic importance....

August 19, 2022
By Zoe Strozewski

More than half of Russia's naval aviation combat jets (click here) from its Black Sea fleet were knocked out in a series of explosions at a Russian airbase in Crimea earlier this month, according to a western official cited in a Reuters report Friday.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, also said that Ukraine was now steadily exacting "kinetic effects" far behind Russia's lines in the ongoing war that began February 24. This is impacting Russia's logistics support, as well as having "a significant psychological effect on the Russian leadership," the official said.

Newsweek was not able to independently verify the Russian jet losses and reached out to Russia's Defense Ministry for confirmation and comment....

The Russian military relies on propaganda and political hubris to maintain it's fearsome reputation. It has no successful military industrial complex. It relies on spies and spineless USA presidents to carry it's reputation as invincible. 

It is time Vladimir Putin retire or resign and end this siege of Ukraine. Russia cannot contain the war. Given it's vulnerability from inside it's own borders Putin should not have pulled the linchpin on an invasion without knowing he would succeed. It has been a disastrous war without mercy on any civilian, especially children. 

August 18, 2022
By Holly Ellyatt

When Russia invaded and annexed Crimea in 2014 (click here) little was done to stop it or actively help Ukraine get its territory back, a salient point given Russia’s full-scale invasion of its neighbor that begun earlier this year.

But now, Ukraine appears to be finally in a position to fight back on the peninsula with a spate of recent incidents in which Russian military positions and infrastructure in Crimea have been damaged.


These, it’s believed, are likely to be a part of Ukraine’s tentative counteroffensive in the south as it seeks to dislodge the occupying forces and eventually reclaim its territory, once and for all.

The latest incidents in Crimea took place on Tuesday when a fire caused multiple explosions in a Russian ammunition depot near Dzhankoi in the north of the peninsula. A nearby railway and electricity sub-station were also damaged as well as residential buildings, Russia’s defense ministry said....