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The War in Ukraine
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Scott
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This sounds good...
www.straitstimes.com
Putin says Russia ready to work with Ukraine on memorandum on possible peace accord
He thanked US President Donald Trump for supporting the resumption of direct talks between Moscow and Kyiv. Read more at straitstimes.com. Read more at straitstimes.com.
Scott
Verified User
This sounds good...
Putin says Russia ready to work with Ukraine on memorandum on possible peace accord
He thanked US President Donald Trump for supporting the resumption of direct talks between Moscow and Kyiv. Read more at straitstimes.com. Read more at straitstimes.com.
I think Simplicius is more realistic about Trump's call with Putin and subsequently with Zelensky and some European leaders meant in the article he published today:
Putin-Trump Phone Call Deadend, AFU Brigade Mutinies Surge, & More Updates
Today Putin and Trump held a long-awaited phone call, which ended up lasting over two hours, by all accounts.
simplicius76.substack.com
Quoting the introductory paragraph:
**
Today Putin and Trump held a long-awaited phone call, which ended up lasting over two hours, by all accounts. Despite both sides drumming up the call’s significance as a good step forward toward normalizing relations, it achieved nothing. The reason: Putin again repeated to Trump that “root causes” of the conflict must be addressed, and shortly after, Zelensky declared in a press conference that Ukraine will never demilitarize and never give up its territories; the impasse stands as before.
**
Simplicius also touches on some interesting developments in the Ukraine military as well:
**
Let’s touch on a developing issue within the AFU—that of increasing rebellion within its ranks against unjustified orders and meat assaults. Just in the past week alone, several major cases were documented.
The most publicized was a commander in the famed and elite 47th Brigade resigned after accusing superiors of ordering ‘stupid’ meat assaults that got his men repeatedly killed, particularly pertaining to the wasteful Kursk operation:
Ukrainian Officer Resigns Command in Elite Brigade, Slams Top Generals for ‘Stupid Missions’
A veteran combat commander, with two medals for valor, led an attack unit in the 47th Brigade, a hand-picked unit armed with US-made Bradley fighting vehicles and Abrams tanks, quit on Saturday.
www.kyivpost.com
==“I have never received more stupid missions than in the current sector (Russia’s Kursk region),” said Maj. Oleksandr Shirshyn in a rare public criticism of Ukraine’s Armed Forces (AFU) senior leadership by a fighting officer.
“The loss of people was stupid, who are terrorized by clueless generalship that leads to nothing but failures. All they (top army leaders) are capable of is reprimands, investigations, imposition of penalties. Everything is going to Hell,” Shirhsyn wrote in comments published on his personal Facebook page.==
Keep in mind all of this is pulled from Ukrainian sources, so there is no ‘Russian propaganda’ here.
The Kyiv Post article further notes:
==Military reporter Yury Butusov, one of Ukraine’s most widely read war correspondents, said Shirshyn’s description of recent fighting in the Kursk region was accurate, and that 47th Brigade attack columns suffered heavy losses because they were ordered to drive their armored vehicles into the teeth of ready Russian defenses covered by dense drone swarms.==
Well, that’s what happens when you launch operations for political and PR, not strategic, reasons.
But that wasn’t even the half of it. Nearly at the same time, Syrsky was forced to abruptly fire the commander of the 59th Brigade for insubordination—or, in other words, refusing to sacrifice his troops pointlessly:
==
Ukrainian Commander Dismissed After Refusing to Sacrifice TroopsUkrainian media report that General Syrsky has abruptly dismissed the commander of the 59th Brigade of Unmanned Systems, which is currently operating in one of the most critical and collapsing sectors near Pokrovsk.
Colonel Oleksandr Sak, formerly head of the 53rd Brigade, has replaced Lieutenant Colonel Bohdan Shevchuk. Notably, the decision bypassed the brigade’s direct superior, Commander of Ukraine’s Drone Forces Vadym Sukharevskyi, and was made personally by Syrsky.
Shevchuk was reportedly removed after ordering a withdrawal to avoid encirclement—a move he claims saved his men but displeased Syrsky and Zelensky.
“There was a real risk of my men being surrounded. I took the initiative to pull them back from positions to save lives,” Shevchuk told the press.
“Apparently, that didn’t sit well with the Commander-in-Chief or the President. So I was dismissed.”
As Kiev’s leadership continues to push for symbolic victories at the cost of lives, commanders on the ground are increasingly caught between political optics and battlefield reality.
==
From Ukrainska Pravda:
==
In the 59th separate assault brigade of unmanned systems, which is currently fighting in one of the most difficult areas of the Pokrovsky direction, the brigade commander was urgently changed - Lieutenant Colonel Bohdan Shevchuk was replaced by Colonel Oleksandr Sak, who until recently headed the 53rd brigade.
Sources : UP interlocutors in the 59th brigade and in the Pokrovskoye direction
Details : The replacement of the brigade commander took place the other day – May 15-16. According to one of the interlocutors of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry in the Defense Forces, the decision to remove Bohdan Shevchuk from his post was not made by the commander of the Unmanned Systems Forces Vadym Sukharevskyi, under whose command the 59th brigade has been since the beginning of 2025, but by the commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrskyi. Although Sukharevskyi himself also had tense relations with Shevchuk.
The reasons for the urgent replacement of the brigade commander have not yet been disclosed. The interlocutors of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry suggest that they lie in the worsening situation in the area of the Pokrovsky direction where the 59th is holding its defense.
The 59th Brigade has been standing on a stretch for several months now, where the Russians have not stopped their assaults and have been making progress in recent weeks.
Oleksandr Sak, with the call sign "Staff", was the head of the 53rd mechanized brigade, which is currently holding the defense in the Kreminna forests, a few days ago. Before that, he was a brigade commander in the 47th brigade and a battalion commander in the 93rd. According to the assessments of the interlocutors of the Ukrainian Defense Forces in various units, he has a good reputation.
==
If that wasn’t bad enough, Ukrainska Pravda also reports that the AFU’s 155th Mechanized Brigade—not to be confused with the indomitable Russian 155th Marines—has had such severe issues of late that it has recorded more than 1,200 AWOL cases just since the start of 2025:
==
Ukrainska Pravda reports that, amidst ongoing command issues and corruption allegations, the 155th Mechanized Brigade has recorded more than 1,200 cases of AWOL/desertion since the beginning of 2025. The main causes are transferring soldiers from different MOS' to the infantry and a lack of support, including supply of UAVs. Their sources also allege that other kickbacks were occurring in other battalions in the brigade. After the article was published, Major General Mykhailo Drapatyi ordered an additional investigation into the allegations.
[snip]
Financial fraud and a management crisis in the brigade have provoked a new wave of mass SZCh. "Ukrainska Pravda" has reviewed a report on the total losses of personnel in the 155th brigade. Since the beginning of 2025, more than 1.2 thousand "SZChshnyky" have been recorded there.
Maksimov has a slightly different view on the statistics of "fugitives": "Now the work has been done in such a way that with each month we have a decline in the number of SZCH."
==
The ‘SZCh-niki’ in question refers to Самовільне Залишення Частини, which translates to ‘Unauthorized Leaving of a Unit’.
Even worse, the article notes the desertions were spurred on by the mass corruption in the brigade, as evidenced by the arrest of the brigade’s drone battalion commander ... for stealing pay of his subordinates
**
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Am I correct that your content creation is going down?I think Simplicius is more realistic about Trump's call with Putin and subsequently with Zelensky and some European leaders meant in the article he published today:
Putin-Trump Phone Call Deadend, AFU Brigade Mutinies Surge, & More Updates
Today Putin and Trump held a long-awaited phone call, which ended up lasting over two hours, by all accounts.
Quoting the introductory paragraph:
**
Today Putin and Trump held a long-awaited phone call, which ended up lasting over two hours, by all accounts. Despite both sides drumming up the call’s significance as a good step forward toward normalizing relations, it achieved nothing. The reason: Putin again repeated to Trump that “root causes” of the conflict must be addressed, and shortly after, Zelensky declared in a press conference that Ukraine will never demilitarize and never give up its territories; the impasse stands as before.
**
Simplicius also touches on some interesting developments in the Ukraine military as well:
**
Let’s touch on a developing issue within the AFU—that of increasing rebellion within its ranks against unjustified orders and meat assaults. Just in the past week alone, several major cases were documented.
The most publicized was a commander in the famed and elite 47th Brigade resigned after accusing superiors of ordering ‘stupid’ meat assaults that got his men repeatedly killed, particularly pertaining to the wasteful Kursk operation:
Ukrainian Officer Resigns Command in Elite Brigade, Slams Top Generals for ‘Stupid Missions’
A veteran combat commander, with two medals for valor, led an attack unit in the 47th Brigade, a hand-picked unit armed with US-made Bradley fighting vehicles and Abrams tanks, quit on Saturday.
==“I have never received more stupid missions than in the current sector (Russia’s Kursk region),” said Maj. Oleksandr Shirshyn in a rare public criticism of Ukraine’s Armed Forces (AFU) senior leadership by a fighting officer.
“The loss of people was stupid, who are terrorized by clueless generalship that leads to nothing but failures. All they (top army leaders) are capable of is reprimands, investigations, imposition of penalties. Everything is going to Hell,” Shirhsyn wrote in comments published on his personal Facebook page.==
Keep in mind all of this is pulled from Ukrainian sources, so there is no ‘Russian propaganda’ here.
The Kyiv Post article further notes:
==Military reporter Yury Butusov, one of Ukraine’s most widely read war correspondents, said Shirshyn’s description of recent fighting in the Kursk region was accurate, and that 47th Brigade attack columns suffered heavy losses because they were ordered to drive their armored vehicles into the teeth of ready Russian defenses covered by dense drone swarms.==
Well, that’s what happens when you launch operations for political and PR, not strategic, reasons.
But that wasn’t even the half of it. Nearly at the same time, Syrsky was forced to abruptly fire the commander of the 59th Brigade for insubordination—or, in other words, refusing to sacrifice his troops pointlessly:
==
Ukrainian media report that General Syrsky has abruptly dismissed the commander of the 59th Brigade of Unmanned Systems, which is currently operating in one of the most critical and collapsing sectors near Pokrovsk.
Colonel Oleksandr Sak, formerly head of the 53rd Brigade, has replaced Lieutenant Colonel Bohdan Shevchuk. Notably, the decision bypassed the brigade’s direct superior, Commander of Ukraine’s Drone Forces Vadym Sukharevskyi, and was made personally by Syrsky.
Shevchuk was reportedly removed after ordering a withdrawal to avoid encirclement—a move he claims saved his men but displeased Syrsky and Zelensky.
“There was a real risk of my men being surrounded. I took the initiative to pull them back from positions to save lives,” Shevchuk told the press.
“Apparently, that didn’t sit well with the Commander-in-Chief or the President. So I was dismissed.”
As Kiev’s leadership continues to push for symbolic victories at the cost of lives, commanders on the ground are increasingly caught between political optics and battlefield reality.
==
From Ukrainska Pravda:
==
In the 59th separate assault brigade of unmanned systems, which is currently fighting in one of the most difficult areas of the Pokrovsky direction, the brigade commander was urgently changed - Lieutenant Colonel Bohdan Shevchuk was replaced by Colonel Oleksandr Sak, who until recently headed the 53rd brigade.
Sources : UP interlocutors in the 59th brigade and in the Pokrovskoye direction
Details : The replacement of the brigade commander took place the other day – May 15-16. According to one of the interlocutors of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry in the Defense Forces, the decision to remove Bohdan Shevchuk from his post was not made by the commander of the Unmanned Systems Forces Vadym Sukharevskyi, under whose command the 59th brigade has been since the beginning of 2025, but by the commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrskyi. Although Sukharevskyi himself also had tense relations with Shevchuk.
The reasons for the urgent replacement of the brigade commander have not yet been disclosed. The interlocutors of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry suggest that they lie in the worsening situation in the area of the Pokrovsky direction where the 59th is holding its defense.
The 59th Brigade has been standing on a stretch for several months now, where the Russians have not stopped their assaults and have been making progress in recent weeks.
Oleksandr Sak, with the call sign "Staff", was the head of the 53rd mechanized brigade, which is currently holding the defense in the Kreminna forests, a few days ago. Before that, he was a brigade commander in the 47th brigade and a battalion commander in the 93rd. According to the assessments of the interlocutors of the Ukrainian Defense Forces in various units, he has a good reputation.
==
If that wasn’t bad enough, Ukrainska Pravda also reports that the AFU’s 155th Mechanized Brigade—not to be confused with the indomitable Russian 155th Marines—has had such severe issues of late that it has recorded more than 1,200 AWOL cases just since the start of 2025:
==
Ukrainska Pravda reports that, amidst ongoing command issues and corruption allegations, the 155th Mechanized Brigade has recorded more than 1,200 cases of AWOL/desertion since the beginning of 2025. The main causes are transferring soldiers from different MOS' to the infantry and a lack of support, including supply of UAVs. Their sources also allege that other kickbacks were occurring in other battalions in the brigade. After the article was published, Major General Mykhailo Drapatyi ordered an additional investigation into the allegations.
[snip]
Financial fraud and a management crisis in the brigade have provoked a new wave of mass SZCh. "Ukrainska Pravda" has reviewed a report on the total losses of personnel in the 155th brigade. Since the beginning of 2025, more than 1.2 thousand "SZChshnyky" have been recorded there.
Maksimov has a slightly different view on the statistics of "fugitives": "Now the work has been done in such a way that with each month we have a decline in the number of SZCH."
==
The ‘SZCh-niki’ in question refers to Самовільне Залишення Частини, which translates to ‘Unauthorized Leaving of a Unit’.
Even worse, the article notes the desertions were spurred on by the mass corruption in the brigade, as evidenced by the arrest of the brigade’s drone battalion commander ... for stealing pay of his subordinates
**
R U going to leave like almost everyone who is worth spending time with leaves?
Scott
Verified User
Am I correct that your content creation is going down?I think Simplicius is more realistic about Trump's call with Putin and subsequently with Zelensky and some European leaders meant in the article he published today:
Putin-Trump Phone Call Deadend, AFU Brigade Mutinies Surge, & More Updates
Today Putin and Trump held a long-awaited phone call, which ended up lasting over two hours, by all accounts.
Yeah, haven't been posting too much recently.
Right now, I'm only posting in one other forum, so I think that's unlikely
.
Scott
Verified User
Looks like all NATO countries have begun to get the hint that Russia's serious at this point.
Scott
Verified User
It's my hope that Ukraine gets to negotiating a peace deal before the Russians decide they need to.
Scott
Verified User
What western values are you talking about?
Starts with Truth and Justice.
Scott
Verified User
I'm not able to see your youtube video, but I think the quote makes sense- just getting a ceasefire definitely wouldn't solve Russia's concerns with Ukraine.
Scott
Verified User
There are definitely some in the western world that value those things, even some in positions of power. The problem is that they are generally outnumbered by those who have been corrupted. I think that will change though. I'm reminded of author G. Michael Hopf's line:
“Hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, and weak men create hard times.”
I think we're in the "weak men" bit, hard times are coming, and then the cycle will reset to the beginning.
Also claims.....has been claiming for awhile....that the Russians are not trying to win this fast......and it is not all about getting their super low casualty numbers as they are.......the longer the war goes the more the Imperial Empire bleeds.
Which is the opposite of what the children in Washington thought they were doing when they demanded this war.
Scott
Verified User
I don't think Washington demanded this war, but I definitely think they provoked it. It looks like they were so arrogant they thought Russia would just let them walk all over them. I think Jeffrey Sach's commentary on what happened immediately preceding Russia's military operation in February 2022 was gold:
**
At the end of 2021, Putin put on the table a last effort to reach a modus operandi with the U.S., in two security agreement drafts, one with Europe and one with the United States. He put the Russia-U.S. draft agreement on the table on Dec. 15, 2021.
Following that, I had an hour-long call with [National Security Advisor] Jake Sullivan in the White House, begging, “Jake, avoid the war. You can avoid the war. All the U.S. has to do is say, ‘NATO will not enlarge to Ukraine.’” And he said to me, “Oh, NATO’s not going to enlarge to Ukraine. Don’t worry about it.”
I said, “Jake, say it publicly.”
“No. No. No. We can’t say it publicly.”
I said, “Jake, you’re going to have a war over something that isn’t even going to happen?”
He said, “Don’t worry, Jeff. There will be no war.”
These are not very bright people. I’m telling you, if I can give you my honest view, they’re not very bright people. They talk to themselves. They don’t talk to anybody else. They play game theory. In noncooperative game theory, you don’t talk to the other side. You just make your strategy. This is the essence of non-cooperative game theory. It’s not negotiation theory. It’s not peacemaking theory. It is unilateral, noncooperative theory, if you know formal game theory.
That’s what they play. That kind of game theory started [in application] at the RAND Corporation. That’s what they still play. In 2019, there’s a paper by RAND, “Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground.”
Incredibly, the paper, in the public domain, asks how the U.S. should annoy, antagonize, and weaken Russia. That’s literally the strategy. We’re trying to provoke Russia, trying to make Russia break apart, perhaps have regime change, maybe unrest, maybe an economic crisis.
That’s what you in Europe call your ally. So, there I was with my frustrating phone call with Sullivan, standing out in the freezing cold. I happened to be trying to have a ski day.
“Oh, there’ll be no war, Jeff.”
We know what happened next: the Biden administration refused to negotiate over NATO enlargement. The stupidest idea of NATO is the so-called open-door policy, based on Article 10 of the NATO Treaty (1949). NATO reserves the right to go where it wants, as long as the host government agrees, without any neighbor – such as Russia — having any say whatsoever.
Well, I tell the Mexicans and the Canadians, “Don’t try it.” You know, Trump may want to take over Canada. So, the Canadian government could say to China, “Why don’t you build a military base in Ontario?” I wouldn’t advise it. The U.S. would not say, “Well, it’s an open door. That’s Canada’s and China’s business, not ours.” The U.S. would invade Canada.
Yet grownups, including in Europe, in this Parliament, in NATO, in the European Commission, repeat the absurd mantra that Russia has no say in NATO enlargement. This is nonsense stuff. This is not even baby geopolitics. This is just not thinking at all. So, the Ukraine War escalated in February 2022 when the Biden Administration refused any serious negotiations.
**
Full article:
Jeffrey Sachs: The Geopolitics of Peace
The author explains manipulative U.S. post-war foreign policy to European MPs, explodes myths about Ukraine and urges an independent European foreign policy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjcMoDFU1xg&ab_channel=MichaelvonderSchulenburg This is an edited transcript of Professor Jeffrey Sachs’
consortiumnews.com