Trying to find information as to what is actually going on has been near impossible to say the least. Both sides understandably give wildly different accounts, but independent analysis seems nonexistent, and it seems that no one knows what’s going on.
Russia is saying that the situation is under control and that Ukraine is being pushed back; while Ukraine says that it’s still advancing while showing limited proof of their gains. Not to mention Russia saying that Ukraine has simultaneously taken massive casualties but is still able to advance and hold what they’ve taken. Russia says they’re flooding reinforcements into the area but it’s been over a week and it seems that there is very little counteroffensive action underway.
Not to mention the question of where Ukraine even got the reserves to commit to such an attack? Even then, if they drained their other fronts for this final push, why aren’t Russian forces capitalizing on Ukrainian depletion and fatigue by striking in the south or north?
US sources talk about this as if Ukraine will be in Moscow by the weekend and are entirely useless for gleaning the reality of the situation, but all Russian sources do is claim that nothing is wrong and 1 gorbillion Ukrainians are being killed each day, despite never going into any further detail.
What’s actually happening? Does anyone have any good sources on the reality of the situation for both sides?
Thank you! That’s definitely a start!
But that kind of exemplifies what I’m talking about. After reading through it, their only source is the Economist and Time which they cite over and over, and then them giving basic analysis of that Time article. Is there anything more substantial then a random blog from a person in Alabama?
I don’t really see the Economist and Time as entirely trustworthy. Lenin still said it best about the Economist.
I mean they could have cited Russian sources but then a lot of people would say that what they write can’t be true because it’s coming from biased pro-Russian media. The point of citing western sources is not that they are more accurate (Russian ones most of the time are far more reliable, so long as they’re not some random Telegram channels that could very well be Ukrainian psyops for all we know), it’s to be able to say to people who distrust Russian sources “look, even the pro-Ukrainian western media admits this”.
But i get your point. And the answer is no, we don’t have anything more reliable at the moment. There is a lot of fog of war, a lot of propaganda, psyops and fakes being spread by Ukraine, and on the Russian side they have pretty tight opsec.
Personally i would say that the most reliable source throughout this conflict has been the Russian MOD because they tend to be very conservative, unlike the Russian milbloggers and “OSINT” channels and such who will often misreport or fall prey to psyops.
And yes the MOD are sometimes purposely vague and often slow to report developments, but when they report you can be sure it’s fairly accurate as enough time has passed that other sources can verify said information. Of course they are biased and will present the information in such a way as to create a better image for themselves, but from my experience they won’t outright lie except by omission.
Ukraine overwhelmed some conscripts and has been responding to the initial panic response with overwhelming kills, however even that isnt likely to manifest in long or mid term gains.
Id argue its a sign of either Ukraine trying to come to the table with a deal for peace that involves returning the contested border regions in the north (Russia recently pushed in further east, the trade will be for these two regions) and then likely peace on the current lines on the east.
What happens next is Russia either pushes them out and that chip is weakend, or they fail and need to talk.
Or this just goes on for many more years as conscripts on both sides get ground into meat paste.
Im hoping peace prevails.
Id argue its a sign of Ukraine trying to come to the table with a deal for peace that involves returning the contested border regions in the north (Russia recently pushed in further east, the trade will be for these two regions) and then likely peace on the current lines on the east.
I really doubt it as Russia is simply unlikely to accept a peace deal right after this attack, as they have already said, and specially if you also take into account that they had already said they would only accept a cease fire if Ukraine moved out of the oblasts that Russia is occupying partially in Ukraine.
As for what happens now, it seems Ukraine has already been mostly stopped so once things stabilize Russia will either push back as they have elsewhere or they will just hold favourable ground and let Ukraine pour as much resources there as they have, as they have been shown to pursue “PR victories” to try to prove their worth to the west so they will give Ukraine more resources to continue fighting.
Russia may also decide that with this incursion on their land it’s worth it to further attack Ukraine’s rear, like finishing off their non-nuclear power plants and perhaps might make Russia decide that they want more land out of this as well due to increased public support for the operation following the attack in Russia.
Yes, this attack has stalled for the most part and it is a distraction from the eastern fronts complete collapse recently with several cities about to fall under Russian control and a state of constant advance for the last 6 months.
My main worries honestly are likely to be unfounded, but it is Ukranian terror units who have infilitrated far into Russia committing acts of terror that I feel may be the worst outcome of this new Ukranian offensive.
It seems that the real state can be collected bit by bit only from local telegram groups. Articles of official publications are full of only speculations from “experts”. Time will tell, but the imperialistic nature of the conflict will not go away and the result will be used in trade
Does anyone have any good sources on the reality of the situation for both sides?
No, nobody does. You just have to read multiple sources for parallax and apply your own experience and analytics.
These are the only two I’ve read that have original thought and content and aren’t McNews:
https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/sitrep-81124-desperate-for-escalation
I see somone linked this already. https://www.moonofalabama.org/2024/08/ukraine-sitrep-the-kursk-incursion-was-stopped.html
