Ukraine troops outnumber fleeing Russian invaders by eight to one. By James Franey.
Vladimir Putin’s troops were driven from more than 20 settlements in 24 hours in a lightning advance in the north-eastern Kharkiv region.
It has left Moscow’s army in disarray as Russian soldiers — outnumbered eight to one — fled to Donbas, Ukraine’s occupied eastern industrial heartland. …
Unusually, the scale of Moscow’s latest humiliation has been acknowledged by those backing its invasion. Vitaly Ganchev, a Kremlin-installed official in the Kharkiv region, told Russian state TV ‘the situation is becoming more difficult by the hour’. He added: ‘If we talk about the force that was transferred to the counter-offensive of the Ukrainian army, it outnumbered our troops by about eight to one, no less.’
Russia ran out of infantry. The Ukrainians mobilized everyone they could, and now they’re trained up.
Russian vehicles are just targets, so it’s safer to abandon them and escape on foot:
The Russians left massive amounts of equipment behind, too much for any sort of orderly withdrawal, and they don’t appear to have torched any of it, either. They just turned tail and fled. “This is an armored brigade worth of vehicles. Looking at this, I think Russia has given more military aid to Ukraine than the United States.” …
Things in Ukraine are moving so fast that the only thing I can be sure of is that what I post here will probably be obsolete before I press the Publish button.
Vladimir Putin’s problems are mounting as a group of Russian politicians have risked their livelihoods to demand his resignation in the wake of his collapsing invasion of Ukraine.
Municipal deputies from 18 districts of Moscow, St. Petersburg and Kolpino made the statement on Twitter, the third such group to do so in a week after similar calls last Wednesday and Thursday. …
There are credible reports that Russian units simply turned tails and fled without putting up a fight against the Ukrainian onslaught, leaving behind more ammunition and tanks than the liberators can recover. …
It is the collapse in the army which is perhaps most stark for Putin, as he has staked so much of his aura on the pre-eminence of the Russian military.
‘Morale is low, training is poor, food is awful, equipment is inadequate, welfare and training is neglected, and commanders are seen as dishonest, uncaring and incompetent,’ independent military history author and researcher ChrisO wrote on Twitter in a scathing assessment. …
Councillors in Smolninskoye, a district of St Petersburg, who called for Vladimir Putin to be charged with treason and forced out of office last week were summoned for police interrogations.
They could face fines or even jail under draconian laws which punish criticism of the armed forces and the Russian authorities.
