1. Focus did a decent update today, and this 60,000 Russian reservist story stands out. Positive spin? Well....these are marginally trained guys who probably aren't that thrilled to get orders to activate. If you asked for a doom-count (either dead, missing, captured, or deserted) within 60 days.....I'd say half of them would be on this doom-list.
2. Pentagon says (BS-factor I would assume of '2').....that around Belgorod (town just over the Ukrainian border from Kiev, maybe 20 miles from the border), that tactical battalions have gone from 30 to 40. Normally, this would translate to 600 to 1,000 guys in each 'group'. Are they fully manned? I would question that. Purpose of the increased manpower? Well....re-entering or re-creating the doorway to Kiev might not be that smart. Moving them to the eastern front? Figure a 24-hour rail movement, or a 2-day truck convoy (avoiding Ukraine entirely).
3. Lot of hype in the EU for a full-blown energy embargo against Russia. Same chatter has the warning of a massive recession for Europe.
4. More dumping by new leadership for the German CDU Party....on Merkel's strategies of the past? Yeah....in the past week....this is openly discussed. She hasn't reached Kohl's level (to be forgotten)....but she's going to be mostly invisible for the next year or two.
5. If you were looking at the 'cards' on the table....it would appear that the new strategy for Putin is to corner the far eastern part of Ukraine....take two districts....establish a path to peace, and get some treaty out of this.
Those two districts? Mostly ethnic-Russians (at least before the war started). A lot of destruction has gone on. So if you were a ethnic-Russian....I'd suggest you probably weren't eager to stay there. Some idiot would probably be appointed 'mayor' of a town which used to be 40,000 and likely now becomes a town of 5,000.
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