Jimmy_D

What a finish! With his weak foot!

There’s no negotiated settlement that will mean Russia wants Ukraine to continue to exist as an independent entity. The only reason any part of Ukraine is still free is that they fought for it, and Russia aren’t strong enough to force it to submit. Any kind of settlement would only delay Russia trying to do what it wants to do militarily, would allow them to attempt to recover from the losses Ukraine have inflicted on them, especially if it resulted in sanctions being lifted, and allow them to avoid having to expend more materiel just to hold on to what they have. There’s a reason it’s Russian voices and Russian mouthpieces that are calling for negotiation now, Ukraine has the stronger conventional military, with the balance of power continuing to tilt Ukraine’s way. Ukraine’s best (only?) chance of long term security is keep going and eventually make it impossible for Russia to continue.

It’s Russia that needs to consider what their end game is. All the time they continue staying in Ukraine, things are getting worse for them. The only option Russia have that will actually improve things for them is conceding.

Visual confirmation now of 24 helicopters destroyed in the first ATACMS strikes, 15 of which were KA-52s, out of an estimated 30-50 KA-52s still flying for Russia. Also they will now need to base far further away, resulting in far longer and riskier missions, more maintenance required using resources already restricted by sanctions, and less capacity to pose a threat due to additional fuel/time requirements.

His football days were before my time but obviously he’s a legend. Another of the 66 team gone It’s a very sad day today. RIP

That’ll do! Just!

Russian-occupied airfield in Berdyansk hit, official line says a SOF operation destroyed at least nine helicopters and various other military hardware. There's speculation it's the first use of ATACMS. Either way looks like being one of the worst days in Russian Air Force history.

Russia attempted a massive attack against Avdiivka the last few days. By all accounts it didn’t go well for them. They’ve lost dozens of tanks and even more personnel carriers for no gain, not to mention hundreds of troops per day. One of their newest patrol ships went to say hello to the Moskva, although Russia seem to be claiming it was a Russian naval mine that sunk it. They’ve also pulled back their navy from Sevastapol following the threat posed by successful Ukrainian strikes there.

Between their keeper having a blinder and limiting them to basically nothing, just a shot to nothing that goes into row z at least 95% of the time undoing us, a proper freak result. We’ll play far worse than that and win this season.

I want all the games where Liverpool have had VvD playing to be replayed after they used illegal tactics to sign him.

Turns out they CAN do it on a cold Tuesday night in Stoke!

Great cross, think Armstrong was trying to put the header back behind the keeper’s movement and was unlucky to pick out the defender’s boot.

Aside from being a little untidy in possession at times, we’ve had a pretty good grip on the game, limiting Stoke to very little. If we can clean that up we’ll hopefully be able to make the second half pretty comfortable. Stoke complaining about the ref picking up fouls that they normally get away with is amusing What a free kick that was!

Perfect!

Farke was complaining about the officials? After today? What?

First half was the best half of football we’ve put together for quite some time, which is just as well because the ref was up there with the worst we’ve seen at St Mary’s. Top quality finishing today! Brilliant result, there aren’t many teams I enjoy beating more than Leeds 😇

It’d be the easiest thing in the world if he was still alive for Russia to score a huge propaganda victory by having him speak and reference the attack he supposedly died in, casting huge doubt on Ukranian/Western intelligence. A Zoom meeting feed of unknown time/origin appearing in a video of a meeting, itself with apparent evidence of being spliced, doesn’t do that nearly so well.

The video he apparently appears in? Feels more like Russia trying to fabricate proof of life than proof of life to me at the moment. Nothing confirming he’s dead yet, but Russia trying that leans more towards him actually being dead for me than if they’d remained silent.

Among many others suspected. Seems Ukrainian intelligence got wind of an extremely high level meeting. This may well have been an extensive decapitation attack, possibly an unbelievably successful one.

Losing four before Christmas would have been disappointing, let alone four on the bounce.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-66888101 With Ukraine targeting AA systems in Crimea the last few weeks, it looks like the whole of Western Crimea is under Ukrainian fire control as a result. If Ukraine can hit the most important dry dock in Sevastapol and the HQ of the Black Sea Fleet without being intercepted, they can hit anything.

Ipswich were utterly ****, offered absolutely nothing apart from what we gifted them. That has to be the worst performance I’ve ever seen Saints manage to lose to.

https://amp.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jul/22/us-coronavirus-covid-unvaccinated-hospital-rates-vaccines

The shipyard in Sevastapol was hit, likely by Storm Shadows/Scalp missiles. At least one ship and one submarine damaged, likely beyond repair. Seems probable that Russia’s ability to defend Sevastapol has been compromised by losing control of the oil rigs in the Black Sea, which were used as a base for advanced radar and AA capabilities. If Ukraine can force the Black Sea fleet to use a different home base, it’d be extremely difficult for Russia to continue supplying the missile cruisers that have been targeting civilians at anywhere near the same rate.