I notice our two Glavset Trolls, Velund and Bobko are conspicuously silent after stalking the forum for ages.
Well, I'm still here. I just try to avoid this thread now, because when I start posting in it I end up posting walls of text in reply to everything - sometimes taking up 50%+ of an entire forum page. Then, Vincent comes along and removes everything to Random.
The reason is always the same: that what I write about mostly concerns Russia, while this thread is titled "Polish Aid to Ukraine". At the same time, he closed permanently the other thread designed for Poles and Russians to discuss Russia. As much as I love conversing with people, it feels a bit of a wasted effort when my replies are only allowed to stay up for a few hours.
Regarding all the things you boys have been so excited about - here's my two cents. Just as I predicted, the Ukrainians have been eating sh!t in Kherson (my prediction was that the counteroffensive would be drowned in blood within two weeks). However, what I did not expect, and what is much more concerning is what is happening in the vicinity of Kharkov.
Unless this is some clever ploy by our military to funnel the Ukrainians into a trap, it has all the appearances of a f*cking fiasco. We advance merely a few kilometers a week on this direction, whereas the Ukrainians have just advanced 20-30 KM in a matter of days, and briefly, threatened an encirclement of a large group of our forces. No bueno - certainly. Now, reserves are being pulled in, and all manner of aviation and artillery work is being done to reverse their gains - but this should not have happened in the first place.
People are p!ssed, and there's a lot of finger-pointing going on. The people holding this stretch of the front were mobilized locals (plus a smattering of Russian paramilitary police units), and they've had a lot of dirt thrown at them in the last couple days. I think this is not fair, as many people do. They've shown themselves in many instances to be more effective fighters than regular Russian formations. Secondly, they should not have been left alone there, and spread so thinly. In the end, fault lays with our top brass. Heads have to roll, and concrete conclusions must be made from this debacle.