Ukraine’s Winter War Might Cast Putin in Role of Defeated Napoleon; New Explosions in Russia: ammunition caught fire “due to the heat”; evacuation has started; Ukrainian Ministry of Defence ridiculed “bangs” in Russia “caused by heat”: We will soon find out whether frost causes explosions; Russia can’t recruit new combat units: not enough people willing to go to war, LIVE UPDATES and MORE

By admin On Aug 23, 2022

Ukraine’s winter war might cast Putin in role of defeated Napoleon:

Russian forces could find themselves at an unpleasant disadvantage as the summer turns to fall and winter, according to U.S. and Ukrainian analysts, due to a combination of corruption and vulnerable supply lines.

“They had very bad supply last winter, and I have big doubts that they really learned their lessons,” Dr. Hanna Shelest, an Odessa-based nonresident senior fellow for the Center for European Policy Analysis, told the Washington Examiner. “Corruption in the [Russian] armed forces didn’t disappear, so I can’t imagine that they’ve been properly prepared.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin has styled his invasion of Ukraine as a campaign in the tradition of Czar Peter the Great, who established the Russian Empire through a series of key victories on the territory of modern Ukraine. Yet the unexpected duration of the war, in conjunction with Russian complaints about poor equipment and inappropriate clothing, raises the possibility that the Kremlin chief is following in the frostbitten footsteps of the French and Nazi armies that tried and failed to defeat Moscow in previous wars.

“If you think about the wars of the past when Napoleon and Hitler got overextended, trying to invade Russia, and ran into the Russian winter — they were the ones who have long lines of communication and supply chains, and the Russians were fighting on their own territory,” former Ambassador Kurt Volker, who worked as the U.S. special envoy for Ukraine prior to the exposure of former President Donald Trump’s first impeachment scandal, told the Washington Examiner. “Now. it’s the opposite: Now, the Russians are the ones who are extended.”

It’s a familiar problem for the invading Russian forces, though it might take a different form than it did in February and March. Then, Putin’s forces attacked Kyiv from Belarus, to the northwest of Ukraine. The wooded topography put Russian military vehicles at risk of getting stuck in Ukraine’s infamous rasputye, or “mud season,” while Ukrainian forces used the terrain as cover to maul the road-bound Russian military convoys. As the fighting shifts from Kyiv to eastern Ukraine and the Black Sea coast, so, too, do the seasonal dynamics.—>READ MORE HERE

New explosions in Russia: ammunition caught fire “due to the heat”; evacuation has started

In Belgorod Oblast in Russia, ammunition is on fire and the population is being evacuated. Local authorities claim that the “lens effect” allegedly caused a fire under the bright sunshine.

Source: Viacheslav Gladkov, the governor of Belgorod Oblast, on Telegram

Quote: “Due to hot weather, [the lens effect occurred] near the village of Tymonove; ammunition which hadn’t been neutralised by sappers caught fire”.