Ukrainian troops are digging in to occupy this small part of the greater Kursk Oblast as part of they call a Special Military Operation. Yes, that's a serious answer. The civilian population was already depopulated of fighting age males, so it's a lot of elderly people that either flee, hide, with a rare handful that can speak Ukrainian coming out to say hello. Nothing good happens to them, unless you own a restaraunt that makes Ukrainian style borscht, in which case the Ukr troops are leaving them positive reviews on Google. Surreal, right? Ukr troops have seized the govt, rail, and energy infrastructure and used explosives to destroy the Gazprom switching station in the area.
Civilian news coming out of the area is sparse. Russian govt has turned off Telegram, Youtube, and other social media channels, along with cell phone service in the region. They don't want news getting out.
It's a solid strategic move by Ukraine. To the South the Russians are grinding their way through them because all of the positions are known and fixed. It's a Rattenkreig, a war of the rats where humans hide underground and force concentrations are heavily attacked with drones as they build up. Russian aviation is throwing guided glide bombs into fortifications to batter them down some the conscripts can creep forward. By opening the Kursk front, there are no real defenses on either side. This creates a crazy situation on the ground for the Russians. They have to push in reinforcements down major highways which get spotted by drones and erased with ATACMS fragmentation cluster bombs. They don't have fortifications to move to so they have to rush to the Ukr front and dig in. Instead of digging in, command and control is non-existent, morale is absymal, so Russian conscripts are looting Russian homes. Instead of digging in they're securing loot, so they can halt the Ukr recon elements that come down the road, but the Ukr will attack the next day with a force concentration that marches them down the road and lets them encircle Russian strongpoints and starve them out. Russian forces have a critical lack of drinking water. All that said, they still have numbers. Throw enough bodies in the way of the Ukrainians and the invasion will continue to bog down. It'll go back to a stalemate like the rest of the line.
#4 | Posted by tonyroma at 2024-08-15 05:19 PM | Reply | Flag:
I get your argument, but when you start off with % increase in what were really low numbers to begin with. The current butts in seats for the Fever are only 17% higher than NY Liberty numbers from 2000 and the league shed 6 or 8 teams from the originals because the market couldn't support them while the NBA runs 30 franchises. I'm from a city with 4 WNBA championships, but you don't really see the jerseys in Academy. You want any city team from a male sport? They have it by the hundreds in every store. 1/3 value of the NBA? That's a very serious stretch.