LIVE: More Aircraft Down? ~ Ukraine Update Dec 25, 2023

Let’s get into what’s going on around the Russia-Ukraine War!

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Good evening and welcome to your update on the Ukraine war today by the way I’m Brian thank you for joining me today glad to have you here if you do hop in go ahead and chime off in the comments I will be watching for them and any

Questions you may have it is Christmas day and I’m going to try and keep this as brief as possible because your time on this holiday is valuable as well uh just this is the opportunity I have to get caught up from the weekend and and boy was there a lot going on this

Weekend let’s go ahead and get started right here go ahead and bust out some there we go the Russian Air Force is continuing to lose planes to Ukrainian forces just on Christmas Eve yesterday one Sue 34 got shot down in the area of marup and another sue3 got shot down in

The Black Sea heading for Odessa by the way if you do hear bells in the background that is a nearby Clock Tower hour and it is Christmas season so they are playing Christmas carols on the hour so I do apologize for that initially uh Ukraine did not

Confirm the s30 was shot down just the s34 and marul they said they were studying the evidence to see what they could actually confirm they weren’t sure it was actually hit however later that day they confirmed two jet aircraft shot down the su3 for in the s30 a whole bunch of

Shads and a couple of air launch cruise missiles so the Ukrainian air defense system is getting really firing on all cylinders now let’s go and take a look at what the institute for the study of War has said about the results of the three Su 34s that were shot down just

The other day in Haron Russian forces are reportedly decreasing their Aviation activity and their use of Glide bombs in Ukraine after Ukrainian forces shot down those three aircraft that would uh be from December 21st and 22nd it looks like they basically they’re limiting their M aviation in those areas and trying to intensify

Their ground strikes to make up for it the thing is the ground strikes were already struggling they’d have to put even more hardware and forces and an effective command in order to even stand a chance at this point to overcome the Ukrainian Bridge head there the uh key key of independent has

Confirmed this Downing of the s34 there’s a lot of this is just related information but one thing I did notice once those three Su 34s were shot down all of a sudden there was a whole lot of artillery hit in haon and they resulted this resulted in a lot of um uh gas

Lines being broken some civilian uh V civilian uh buildings and infrastructure being hit explosions and fire they went Whole Hog in trying to destroy AI civilian infrastructure they didn’t hit back at military targets it’s almost as though they know they can’t so they went after the civilian infrastructure that

May not have been uh directly as quite as protected that was a total of 71 shelling incid incidents in Haron and this resulted in the death of a local resident and injuries to two others and kind of just more s is talking about that now one of the other

Responses that Russia has been playing up is this idea that the same day that Ukraine shot down three Su 34s Russia destroyed six f-16s now there’s some problems with that Ukraine hasn’t received their first batch of s16s in fact they they might get them by the end of 2023 however my

Understanding is that those Jets were actually redirected to be modernized with a better radar and additional update pop ahead of here and they attached a picture in Russian sources that showed this destroyed F-16 this is a fake it’s a picture that was originally shown in October of 2018 from

Belgium and the it was a training incident and the F-16 was destroyed there but this is not a Ukrainian F-16 now there was some analysis going forward this one being forwarded by null reports uh F16 combined with a patriot system will be able to strike at Russian Jets without entering the Zone covered

By Russian air defense they have long enough range radar and capable missiles that the Jets can fire without getting in range of Russian uh air defense and then of course if the Russians get close enough then the Patriot systems have a 120 km plus range so if the Russian Jets

Try to overtake or intercept an s116 a patriot or a s t will effectively land it and this is the information on the modernization here just to show that I didn’t just pull that off the top of my head it was actually an information that

Had been put out there so we’ve just a really interesting information the loss of this Aviation Hardware has got to have Russian Pilots re really being concerned in fact somebody’s forwarding the idea that perhaps some of them might be taking shall we say a little bit of

Sick leave oh my stomach hurts so bad I can’t fly today you guys better uh you know figure this whole thing out without me I’m sure that I would love to be in the air but you know what I’m just too sick Etc but that’s just Theory at this point in

Time now one of the interesting interesting things that has happened is that uh Ukraine has started changing over their celebration of Christmas from the Russian tradition of January 7th or thereabouts and instead going with the Western tradition of December 25th and of course a lot of this is just the

Ukrainian Christmas traditions I’m going to play a few seconds of this video from the key of independent put my headphones on so I can hear it too hundreds of kilometers from battles raging in the countries east and south ukrainians and Kev are preparing to celebrate Christmas in the midst of the

War’s Darkness ukrainians continue the tradition as old as time itself the one that Echoes resilience of our ancestors who through the longest nights and the coldest days celebrated hope and light and that’s the type of of people we’re talking about in Ukraine you know

If you look back at World War II the um the London Blitz the U the battle for the battle for Britain um British civilians dealt with day in day out bombing campaigns because uh Hitler decided that that he could um prosecute and basically beat Britain into submission to bring them to the

Negotiating table by bomb in them constantly and initially it looked like it might there might be some real effect here um and he was they were targeting military facilities in fact it was uh to the point at one point that uh uh the Germans were destroying all the places

That they were building aircraft destroying the airfields that they were launching from everything that all that infrastructure and then they switched to bombing civilian targets uh the bombing London itself trying to hit the people of Britain outright uh directly now the interesting thing is that if he had kept going if

The Germans had kept going after the the British military targets the odds are pretty good he would have succeeded at least in entirely destroying the British Air Force and any ability to respond to Russia’s to uh sorry uh Germany’s attacks and yet the when they switched to civilian

Targets it literally gave them time to rebuild prepare and then have enough resources to win the Battle of Britain in the air War over Britain and to a certain extent that’s what it feels like Russia is doing to Ukraine they’ve instead of going after the military targets and continuing in that vein

They’re just hitting everything they can in hopes of destroying the spirit of the people but the Brits uh said keep calm and carry on they just kept on being just just living their day-to-day existence and continued moving forward and that’s what Ukraine is doing at this Christmas season and by

Turning from the Russian tradition to the Western tradition of December 25th it shows where their hearts truly are are moving towards in fact um I’m just going to quickly scan through this uh this article this opinion piece on um on it from the key of post again a Ukrainian author yenia

Uh zav zali I apologize on that pronunciation uh started celebrating Christmas on December 25th back in 2014 when the rejection of everything Russian began in her life she was was criticized for breaking away from the traditions of their ancestors and the church but she stuck by stuck by that decision

And now this is a real way to say that that uh they ukrainians are not part of the Russian World they are and wish to be free in fact I think let me see if I can find it real quick whoops sorry that’s uh that’s not what I intended to do here

Let me see if I can find it real fast last year there was a great bit here in fact I could probably uh see if I kill that and go to that okay that’ll be a little bit better let’s go and see if I can find that other piece of information here I

Know I grabbed it thought it was interesting okay here it is this is an interview with Ivan mikos he was a um former adviser to the Ukrainian prime minister and the question was you lived in Kev for several years how has Ukraine changed over the years I lived

In Ukraine from 2014 to 2020 he said during this time Ukraine has changed dramatically which Putin apparently does not understand this was after maidon after the annexation of crime and the occupation of part of dbas it was then that Ukraine first United since then the vast majority of ukrainians support joining the European

Union and NATO and the country’s geopolitical position has changed Ukraine was divided even before the maidon the western part leaned towards the European Union and NATO and the Eastern towards Russia the situation changed with the annexation of Crimea when in Russia and the trend towards reproach M with it lost support in the

Eyes of the vast majority of ukrainians in short we can say that by annexing Crimea Putin gained Crimea but lost Ukraine and now that I’ve used that I’m going to move that out of the way so I don’t uh retouch on that again later but overall this idea is that Ukraine wants

To be part of the Western World wants to be free they want to be independent still obviously but they want to be out from under the the heel of Russian influence what ukrainians are spending their money on this holiday food booze and the Army that’s actually not

Surprising I mean food always and booze certainly seems to get really really popular when you’re under wartime conditions the fact that these people are still investing everything they can extra into the military is quite uh telling in my mind it says that they support their military by and large and

Are willing to go the mile to try and win their freedom okay got all of that right there let’s go ahead and move on to news out of Ukraine I’m going to take just a moment to pause here and Catch My Breath um again today’s Christmas and I do want

To wish you Merry Christmas and thank you for joining me today I am going to keep this one relatively short but absolutely feel free to jump in and ask your questions for today um the uh I’m not all tied up and I you know got my tire anything like that so um that’s

Just to to recognize that that today uh all of us should be thinking about peace on Earth Good Will towards men and the Savior and and trying to overcome the challenges of this war and for those that are in Ukraine that are suffering under this right now that

Are dealing with the air air alarms and air alerts I hope you still manage to find some happiness at this time of year uh for Christmas all right let’s go ahead and move on here Russia has been hitting humanitarian Aid in hon for the last 5 days this is the third one they’ve

Struck and the they just basically trying to destroy those basic humanitarian supplies that people would be able to you know survive on this is not military hardware this is not military targets it’s humanitarian supplies a monument to the participants of the January armed uprising of 1918 has been dismantled in the Kiev City

This the ideological purpose of this pedestal was to glorify the bulvik who orchestrated an armed Rebellion against the Ukrainian Central Council and the Ukrainian People’s Republic in other words the Russians overthrew R Ukraine’s government this basically glorified the Soviets and the Imperial imperialists there and they’re trying to eliminate that

Influence interesting uh unrelated entirely they have announced a new Maritime drone that can bip along at 110 km per hour about 65 mph that’ll be the fastest object in the Black Sea and it’s called Mamay let’s go and move over to news out of Russia I’m going to start off with

The institute for the study of War uh the I’m going to ignore that part because it’s not the most interesting part of this year I’ve had to refresh my browser a few more times but the there is indications once more in Western media that Vladimir Putin intends to uh

Is putting forth feelers towards interest in a ceasefire and they’re saying don’t believe it this is just meant to delay and discourage further Western military assistance to Ukraine than any serious interest in ending the war other than a fullon Russian Victory pretty straightforward it’s deception and politics the Russian Central Bank is

Saying that the country should be prepared for increased sanctions pressure they generally thought they fared pretty well early on uh in the war but there looking like things are getting a little bit harder for them a nuclear powered vessel for the Russian Federation which is a nuclear-powered Icebreaker actually

Caught fire it was just in one of the cabins not in the actual uh Machinery rooms or anything like that so there was no immediate uh risk of nuclear explosions or anything like that but it’s just interesting and it kind of tells you that overall the maintenance

On these Russian ships is starting to suffer Russia’s attention is getting a little divided and they’re preparing an expedition to Africa to search for and train mercenaries to participate in the Ukraine war they’ve got they’re putting together 50 to 100 soldiers to be the uh core of their Africa core and then they’re

Initially doing that in the KK region and then they’ll send them over to Africa to find soldiers for uh Vladimir Putin’s War the FSB over in um Russia has accused a Ulan UD native of trying to to join the freedom of Russia Legion apparently he did some text messages

With the bot that would be involved there and overall they uh they found out about it and they’re going to throw the book at him I mentioned previously that a new potential Contender for the presidential election in Russia had been identified a journalist by the name of iarina

Dunova and the election commission said no there’s problems with her application they said they refused it because there were over 100 errors in it which is interesting uh they’re obviously trying to make sure that she cannot run three Russian servicemen in the belad region were injured as a result of

A drone attack just sharing this to show that the war is being carried over into Russia as well moving back to miss dunova again here she also went to one of I think this is a party Yoo uh that uh was approached by dunova to potentially uh basically sponsor her

As a presidential Contender apparently they said we don’t know you uh we’re not interested and of course we’ve already done our Congress so no way comparatively the Communist Party of the Russian Federation nomin nominated a 75-year-old man Nikolai K karanov as their candidate for the presidency and

Uh he was asked are you going to criticize Vladimir Putin and he said for what he is responsible for his work cycle I am responsible for mine I’m not the type of person to criticize a colleague I understand perfectly well how heavy the burden is to be the

President of Russia I think that anybody who uh takes the time to criticize Vladimir Putin on a regular basis tends to end up in jail or otherwise not positively inclined to Life Investment activity in the Russian Federation has slowed down sharply to pre 2019 levels and they’re expect that the

Collapse of imports of investment good goods and the slowdown in construction amongst other potential uh factors has slowed down Russia’s economy and the lieutenant general over R Cosmos has been charged with embezzling 4.5 million in Russian State funds this is just one more sign of the ongoing corruption in Russian

Government all right so we’re going to take a pause after Russia here for just a moment I’m gonna go and just mute my mic for just a moment do you have any questions for me or any uh comments so far let me know and uh by the way at this point if you’re

Appreciate all the news around the Ukraine war that I do uh chase down and get together hit me with that old thumbs up I’d appreciate that as well by the way I do have a cat here on my left side so if the cat suddenly jumps up and ends

Up in my face you’ll know what happened and where it came from it won’t be random let’s go aad and move on to international news Ukraine has received another 1.3 billion in financial support from the World Bank this is to support their the social and humanitarian expenditures foreign shareholders have

Bailed on a project in the Russian Arctic called the LG2 project uh companies from China France and Japan have suspended their participation due to the ongoing sanctions I want to talk about Serbia a little bit here but I’m going to move this whoops and move this over to that

Section and come back to it in a bit France is putting together an artillery coalition to strengthen the Ukrainian Army here and that new artillery Coalition uh will be basically focused on getting them the artillery shells and Equipment they need in particular the 155 and 105 mm shells UK’s defense minister Grant shaps

Has said there will be severe consequences if Russia wins the war in Ukraine if we allow Putin to win this war by dragging it out and he somehow wins it by exhausting everybody else then we will suffer the consequences and the consequences would be incredibly severe for Europe for Britain for the

World little bit of word of warning there i y leader ysep Boral has said that Putin will continue the war until the final Victory and in fact if there’s several other sources that say basically if Vladimir Putin doesn’t successfully win this war it will mean not just the

End of his presidency but potentially the end of his life so he may be very motivated to keep going or at least Come Away with uh with a situation that he thinks he can continue to come back from regardless of the actual circumstances on the ground polish Farmers have suspended a

Blockade at one of the border crossings over Christmas my understanding is that this is still a flexible situation with the uh with the border crossing over there and uh it just is continuing to change depending on the moment according to build um Russia may attempt to attack Europe next Winter According to European

Intelligence sources but they made they definitely um um they definitely let me see if I can get the right word here they definitely um think that it would be in the situation of the problem with the United States and their election it suggests that Russia May launch an

Attack on Europe during the winter of 20242 if the United States finds itself without a leader following the 2024 US presidential election so that’s a pretty specific set of circumstances one that uh we might potentially be headed for hey casmin glad to have you here thank

You very much for joining me uh I didn’t see your message on Twitter here but I will take a look for it and I’ll see if I can respond to you and by the way thank you for joining me today I appreciate having you here a

Lvia has sent a total of 271 cars confiscated from intoxicated drivers to Ukraine valuing nearly 1 million EUR I’m sure they’re going to be reworking them to become some kind of military transport vehicle of some kind now I follow Mr uh NATO Supreme Al former NATO Supreme Allied Commander

James stus on um which I’m sure I just butchered his name so apologize Admiral um on Twitter and I keep an eye on what he says and he has been watching the situation closely he said it is a very dangerous situation and here the real action is not actually in Kiev the real

Action is in Washington we’ve got to provide the military support to Ukraine their cause is just and that’s a that is a a genuine moral reason to support Ukraine they are fighting the for a just cause their freedom their freedom from tyranny their freedom to determine their own future and I believe

That is what Admiral stus is stating there already talked about that the mayor of London is doing a similar thing to to Latvia I think it was and they’re sending their 4x4s and other appropriate vehicles that were destined for the scrapyard to you to um Ukraine to be

Used now they did say the this would be suitable Vehicles so likely ones that were that are operational but had other Financial or situation or perhaps former government vehicles that were intended to be scrapped out and maybe converted into scrap metal effectively so this is more equipment being sent to Ukraine

It’s not weapons in the classic sense but Ukraine does all kinds of crazy things and they are able to do um amazing things with anything we send them uh let’s see casman asks why do you think other democracies should defend democracies around the globe it’s like a democracy Theory like they don’t fight

Each other democracies around the globe should realize the outright threat that is going on in Russia and Ukraine right now and the thing is that from my perspective I’m seeing it happen and carry over to other places all over the place where because Vladimir Putin was not stopped in

Ukraine other strong men and dictators have been emboldened uh Iran trying to uh stir things up with Hamas uh Venezuela trying to stir things up with their neighboring country oh I forgot the name right now just that moment there so but they’re trying to take over part of their

Neighbor neighboring country there’s C there’s African countries same thing happening they’ve been trying to overturn the government in Serbia they’ve been trying to overturn the governments in the Baltic states uh they’ve been uh basically they’ve basically already got hungry and they’re tying up turkey in a yes no

Um so uh overall it seems like that there there is a common cause to for World stability in stopping Vladimir Putin in Ukraine if we’d stopped him back then it would have been a much cheaper stop but now we’ve got to stop him all over the world and all these

People uh thank you stepen I didn’t know about the pollution Zone information there so thank you on that um the vehicles the vehicles were probably make cannot meet the old the new standards then and that’s why they may be sitting over and that would be certainly useful for Ukraine no matter

What already R addressed that one there then there’s an interesting situation that happened over in AR and that is a man chucked a grenade at a BBC Russian Service uh at a group of BBC Russian service journalists the grenade looks like it was probably a flashbang or they called

It a training grenade the man basically looked in the door uh through and threw the uh training grenade at the people’s feet that stunned several people there were no casualties but the journalists think it was related to their professional activities as journalists the government says says they think it was a personal dispute

With the bar so take your pick on which one you want to believe here uh I the one of the journalists that were on site there when it happened said that we were when we were sitting at the counter a guy burst in looked at us looked into my eyes and

Threw a grenade at my feet so it seems like it was targeted directly now maybe this will come out later I have a theory and it is just a theory and that is that maybe he was um targeting BBC Russian journalists specifically and perhaps at the behest

Of the Kremlin to try and and um basically suppress them and threaten them indirectly with uh with threats to their lives to keep them from reporting facts about the situation in Ukraine BBC Russian has been pretty good about being a relatively good source on Ukraine and the situation over

There now let’s talk about Serbia for a moment now this is a very much fluid situation here there was a recent election there international groups noted that there were irregularities stuffed ballots bought votes and very much not um a shall we say clean election in any way shape or form so

Which this has resulted in a great deal of protests often with student protesters and young uh people uh uh college students in the L this um situation really is getting rather tense it’s gotten to the point where more than 2,000 protesters were gathered at the Belgrade city hall and

Demanding a review of the results and they even broke down the doors and threw Stones inside and had been going at it for several days then President Alexander vuich issued an address stating that there will be no Revolution happening the clashes broke out with the uh with

The police in the area and basically they started deploying tear gas and basic very violent techniques to finally disperse the crowd the um vuic called it a color Revolution and he was quote warned in advance by Foreign intelligence Services that’s interesting because later he does say thank you to Russia in

Particular now vuch and Russia have had a cozy relationship in regards to these so-called color revolutions and they’ve already been working to basically oppose them that said anything that’s against their narrative is being called a color Revolution hold on I’m just kind of catching up with some of the things I’ve already

Said here’s what the Parliament building in Belgrade looks like now lot of damage there shattered glass and stuff scattered Here There and Everywhere the Russian Ambassador announced that vuch will soon publish data on Whose financing and plotting protests in Serbia this feels like as Ivana stroder says who watches this area

Very closely another KGB imit intimidation tactic and they’re blaming the United States like the do with everything in the area so it they probably already have the data falsified already the fix is in for lack of a better way say it and of course vuch thanked Russian spies for warning about this color

Revolution attempt that was reported in Russia Today which should tell you a little bit about where vuich is getting his support from in the meantime though V posted a a picture on Instagram sitting there eating apple slices definitely is not reading his room very well we’ll just put it that

Way and they say that the way to look like a jerk pretty much in any movie is to have your uh your antagonist eat an eat an apple while saying just horrific things so there you go Mr vuich is not looking quite so good right now as his

Own citizens suffer under the brutal repression of his police forces now just so you know that this is not information being pulled from nowhere this is a PBS NewsHour article talking about the situation in uh Belgrade Serbia there and towards the bottom it states representatives of several International rights Watchdogs

Observing the elections reported multiple irregularities during the vote including cases of Bot votes and Ballot Box Stu stuffing they also noted unjust conditions for opposition candidates because of media bias abuse of public resources by the ruling party and vuich dominating the ruling party’s campaign and media time allocated for candidates

Despite not taking part in the elections himself so the international Watchdogs say that there’s some issues with this election do I know this is 110% the absolute gospel truth no I have from enough sources that I can reasonably state that there are issues with the election in Serbia and the thing is that

This appears to be if true this appears to be supported and even directed by the Kremlin by uh the Kremlin regime showing that they’ve got their fingers in Europe they’re trying to overthrow democracies and uh and the situation like that and take control of them in any way they

Can that just the same typee of thing that’s happened in Ukraine they’re trying to do the same thing there and the ukrainians fought back so that’s kind of where I was ended up with on the Serbia stuff and why I added it by the way I’m going to take a brief

Pause here so uh if you have any questions or comments by the way thank you for what I’ve seen so far absolutely appreciate it and glad to have you all here so thank you I’ll be going into the front lines here just next year and uh looking forward to moving on

Ask your questions I’ll be reading them in just a moment absolutely they do and that’s the that was one of the uh parallels that somebody pointed out and for those who may not know bellus had a very much contested election uh that was rif with uh with um irregularities if I’m going

To be very generous in my assessment there uh where it was basically outright cheating and lucenko won the elections and then had a brutal repressive Crackdown on anybody who said he didn’t uh supported by and in fact often they state that Russian snipers and Special Forces actually came

Into bellarus to enforce the results of that election so very much a mirror of what happened in bellarus that’s why I’m concerned about it all right let’s move over to the front lines new Ambush tactics by the Armed Forces of Ukraine and this is interesting they take a drone and

They’ve got a situation where they may have hit an area and there’s casualties uh or troops that need to be evacuated they’ll take one of their drones they’ll move to a into a spot where it is uh disguised as a bush or Garbage or a bundle of rubbish they’ll wait for an

Explosion then an evacuation vehicle comes for the wounded and along the path of the movement that that vehicle passed they put a new mine there so when the evacuation vehicle goes down that same path it hits this new mine destroying that vehicle lather rinse and repeat they can continue U mining the area

Sitting with more drones sitting more PV drones in there to take care of any new evacuation vehicles and this creates a basically a self-feeding Ambush the longer it goes and they just have to the Russians will have to start watching for mines that are put into place after

They’ve passed through an area the problem is that usually you think you’ve got a clear Road and that slows you far down so interesting what kind of kind of tactics the ukrainians are using thought that was a nice one to add and share the uh intelligence update from the UK

Talks about the rat and mice infestation in some sectors of the front line they had a mild Autumn ample food from the fields that were left to and were not tilled or or anything so they had plenty of food in those fields and that has caused an explosion in rodents with

Colder Weather the rodents go into shelter and they’ll often shelter inside vehicles and defensive positions they of course that’ll reduce morale but it also causes illness and they tend to chew on wires cables and insulation destroying the vehicles that they nest in this is just overall a nasty

Situation on the front lines and something that both sides are likely having to deal with right now overall situation on the front lines here let’s see I do need to fix my uh I might actually work right now let me see if it does nope not right now

Okay I’ll mess with that later so um over here in the um leemon persy area just kind of a general impression is that um the Russians are starting to bring in more heavy equipment more mine clearing equipment and trying to really step up their assault on svka which is right

Here basically in the middle of the map they’ve managed to take a little bit of force area but they have basically run into the rock wall of Ukrainian defenses down near Bach moot we got some interesting things going on near modona Russians actually took a fairly wide

Front there of maybe two or three kilometers wide and managed to push forward probably about a kilometer even two of mostly an open area but tree lines and and more defensible positions a lot of work there so we’re going to steep through that for the last several

Days when I get to that section of the front uh just it’s an interesting one to take a look at have DF continues to hold no real changes in lines there veroa and robota here the Russians tried to take initiative and have took a little bit more territory but the

Ukrainians have managed to capture some back they’re basically exchanging different parts of the front line here and the neeper river the situation in kinky continues to be held by Ukraine and with the destruction of those three Su 34s and then another one near marup and the s30 down in South near the Black

Sea It’s seems like that’s really driven Russian Aviation out of this area and they were relying heavily on that Aviation to try and uh and overcome Ukraine’s defenses they’ve they’ve been unable to get their troops in there for land or ground assault and have it actually stick the ukrainians have been

Fighting them back every time but the one thing they couldn’t really counter is the aviation the Glide bombs that would be launched from 50 km out and landing on their heads well the Russians aren’t exactly getting all that heavy with the Glide bombs now they are uh have basically stopped almost all of

That aviation in the area for now until they determine exactly what Ukraine has done that’s a good overall on the front lines there the there was an official report finally on the capture of the remains of marinka you see right here that it’s basically nothing but shattered

Buildings and uh and remains this is how Russia takes territory now they just flatten everything in their path and keep on moving a bus depot is on fire in occupied horka they’ve reported the fire is particularly intense and it makes me wonder if there might have been a fuel

Depot or something like that nearby not far away in Elis six tanks of diesel fuel burned on a basically on a train uh on a train track there um that was targeted on December 23rd I wonder to a certain extent if these two events are directly related to each other but

I’ve not been able to prove one way or another it just indicates that Ukraine has targeted some fuel supplies Giannis thank you very much Happy happy Christmas to you too and everyone else thank you so additional uh attacks there and I think they’re attacking those Supply supply

Lines this is more about the the horka fire there this is what makes me think there might be more to it than just a bus station that’s a pretty intense fire for the type of situation that is being reported there was some shelling in the village of zovo in the sumsky district

Brian region that puts it in r on Russian territory Ukraine has been more taking the fight to Russian territory to try and prevent Russia from getting too comfortable in how the lines are actually lined up right now that said they’re not exactly destructive majorly destructive attacks just overall interesting to see it

Happening bahara crina area this is the new Ukrainian positions north of bifa this is means that the ukrainians have managed to move forward just a little bit in this area you can see this little gray area where they have or sorry blue area where they have just

Recently gained a little bit of extra territory the situation in Copan that I mentioned just a few moments ago kind of just confirming the same information already discussed mine clearing vehicles and it looks like they’re the Russians are planning a bigger mechanized attack in the next days or

Week a Russian assault east of turny which is let me see if I can pull that up here if I remember right that would be right in this area here let me see if I can find it now been long enough since I’ve looked up turny there we go

Yeah okay there we go uh turn little bit of a turny assault here got into some more tree lines that’s all it is just more open area that basically is not exactly undefended but not as as not heavily defended like others talking about kinky again the

Neer re River Region here A bunch of Russians gathered in a house they occupied it in kinky or near kinky and uh the ukrainians found out about it and dropped a high Mars on it I took care of any of those uh Russian forces in there the overall

Situation in kinky is that uh Ukraine seems to be really on the offensive here uh the they’ve stepped up fire support in kinky with uh with cluster Munitions the babayaga drones that the Russians hate so much they’ve been mining roads and the they just feel like there’s so

Many of these drones that the Russians are being hit with the Infantry can’t move due to lack of cover now they do respond with bombs but you we already talked about the situation with Aviation there they’re they’re trying but the Russians are not succeeding and I think

They’re starting to get a bit frustrated over there now let’s look at bodka a little bit closer here there’s been things going on here for the last while this is about 21st uh 4 days ago now watch the lines as we step let me step back one

Step here okay to the 20th let’s watch the lines as we step forward 20th 21st 22nd 23rd so you saw that there was this big Advance by the Russians on the 22nd huge gains all open territory and then the ukrainians pushed them right back in the cromova area down

Here that doesn’t return them back to the original lines but it is interesting to see this happening Boda is an interesting situation I watched another uh person do a long analysis on bodka the problem was he that there are multiple bodas and he picked the wrong

One when he was looking at the map and so overall you’re looking at kind of a a situation here these Rivery areas are the ones with the blue line in them because they’ve got a river in them are the low areas the Russians have managed to capture a little bit of the higher

Territory over over the street near bodka but overall the situation is really really a tough one for Russia right now they’ve managed to push into the edge of bodino to their benefit and if they can keep pushing and get not get distracted by Ukrainian forces down here near cromova then they will probably

Just flatten the whole village until they get through to the far side it’s going to depend on what resources um Ukraine wants to put into holding this Village it is terrain that was pretty hard fought for and regained by the Ukrainian armed forces and they don’t

Want to lose it uh it’ll be interesting to see what comes out of this an area to keep an eye on the Counterattack near cromova indicates that they probably got more resources there than than the ukrainians are letting on and we might see a lot of action in this area in the coming

Days here’s uh this is actually the a Russian source map talking about the recaptured positions in cromova area this is just kind of showing that the the territory is being exchanged back and forth the weather situation over there is pretty bad not as bad as directly in the South but still pretty

Bad snow and and bad uh roads and bad conditions so any territory they take right now will then have to be uh dug into and protected and depending on the weather we’ll determine exactly how easy or hard that is say and now we’re about ready to go on

Move on to the interesting extras do you guys have any questions for me absolutely would love to hear from you and thank you by the way so far for making comments as we go I do absolutely appreciate it the situation in Ukraine is always going to be changing and I want to make

Sure we stay ahead of what’s going on and stay well informed about everything going on over there all right I’ll be watching for your questions or comments so let’s continue on this is a himars launcher with Christmas lights on it obviously this High Mars launcher is

Well behind the front lines it’s not uh not being used near the front at this point close enough they can still hit targets because they do use it to launch missiles but they’re not going to be sitting like right there in cranky or right across in hairon with that one all

Light lighted up like that still it’s a bit cheery to see what they did Ukrainian Aviation continues to absolutely impress me I play some flight simulators I would not be able to reliably pull this off in a simulated helicopter with no risk of me dying and yet there they are they’re skimming

Along maybe a dozen feet 20 feet in the air always impresses me how they they pull off this high-grade military Aviation how’s this for a little uh little funny here like in World War II they called him hobart’s funnies that is an m250 caliber machine gun mounted to a motorcycle side car

Crazy this was just interesting Nasha P Nasha NASA published a photo of a Christmas tree in space now this is beautiful and you can see the Christmas tree they had to rotate it use two different um um t Scopes uh modify the infrared data to make it into green

Instead of other colors twiddle with the settings to give them the bright blue and white dots um but overall they’re just showing that the that this section of space looks kind of like a Christmas tree little bit of humor here from Crimean wind the first batch of eggs

From turkey has arrived in Crimea I just giggled as I as I’ll get out when I saw this one it I just don’t know that I there’s no message here I just thought it was hilarious and we’ll end off with a little reminder here back December 25th 1991 Mikel Gorbachev resigned as leader

Of the USSR the Russian the sorry the Soviet flag came down from the Kremlin for the last time that country became 15 independent republics now Jason J smart a journalist states that history will repeat Russia has less time than you think before it falls but I just want to state that if

It happened once and the conditions are right it could easily happen again and we’re looking at a Russia that is not the Soviet Union that was there when I was a teenager I was young it’s I look at this and I realize that 1991 means that the Soviet Union I grew up um

Understanding as the enemy ended more than 30 years ago and yet they’re trying to recreate that enemy and this is well this is just me talking for a little bit here um it was in the early 2000s when I started thinking about it I actually thought you

Know it would be fun to visit Russia the um the one the big enemy that that uh that was so the big bad evil wolf it would be interesting to visit and see Russia and just explore it a little bit to see some of the areas

There see what it was like on that side of the curtain even 10 15 years after the the fall of the Soviet Union and see where they were how they were progressing how they were getting better I I stopped seeing Russia as the enemy and

Um it was a it was a big change for me I grew up at the latter end of the Cold War uh Russia was always the evil enemy not that I was not in the sense that um not in the sense of a propaganda sense but because they had always been in

Favor of these horrific communist regimes these these dictatorships they’d been doing so much evil across the world and I thought Russia had changed and it took the 2022 Invasion cuz understand I wasn’t following the things in 2014 but it took the 2022 Invasion to realize that the same old

Soviet Union was just under a new tricolor Banner they were using the same methods and the same systems and the same way of doing things they had the same old guy doing the same old things at the head of it he was just in a different

Position and I mourn the loss of that brief period where I believed there was peace that did do mean there was but I believed it so that’s my thoughts for today thank you for joining me any other questions before I sign off for today kek says I read a comment on AMA

On Reddit the other day from a Russian son of a millionaire would asked about sanctions he replied I wouldn’t say that our lives have changed much some brand stores are indeed closed due to sanctions but their online stores also continue to operate in Russia there is no difference in fact

Uh do you think this is also true for the general public I think that uh in Moscow it’s generally true in um and anywhere not Moscow okay Moscow St Petersburg partially rostov undon any of those areas I think it’s in fact true that’s where the Millionaires and the billionaires like to

Live um I believe it’s totally true there I think that if you don’t live in those three places number one your standard of living was already much lower but I think it’s getting much worse opinion just from what I’m seeing uh be interesting to see what it looks like now and Stephen uh

Georgia I’ll tell you honestly I was a young father when Georgia happened uh I was not tracking anymore Russia had fallen off my radar and so I’ve had to catch up with a whole lot of of History not that I wasn’t there for much

Of it you know I was alive I was busy I was just busy with a young family and the challenges of of young family life and now that I’ve I’ve managed to get into a spot where I can start paying attention um it tells me how much I

Missed like I said I missed that that little piece of peace that I thought existed and I just I yes I realize now that I was deluding myself and believing it but at the time I fervently held to it and I just I hate to say it but I hope that

Everyone else wakes up to the exact same thing that I had to wake up to that step had to wake up to that many others will have to wake up to when things get bad enough any other questions before before I sign off I appreciate you guys here absolutely Merry Christmas uh happy

Holidays if you’re not a Christmas person I have a good friend of mine who just does not love the holiday season uh so you know we’ll see how she feels about it when I talk to her later but overall just make sure you’re thinking

Of your loved ones and if you are uh if you are believing it uh Jesus Christ make sure you keep keep uh his sacrifice in your in your mind this is Christmas so I’m definitely touching on things I wouldn’t normally touch on but absolutely thank you for joining

Me stepen says I had hope at the time as well of course remember Winds of Changed by scorpions yeah things have certainly changed a lot and I was looking forward to a world I had hopes of a world where I wouldn’t have to think about the uh

Crawling I got I was I’m old enough I got taught how to crawl under my desk in the event of a nuclear attack I was close enough to military facilities that would be absolutely targets that uh the area I lived in would have been targeted so not that

Calling under my desk would have made any difference but that’s what they taught you at the time so overall it is the world we live in and it’s time to lose the blinders and uh and make certain I’m watching all right thank you very much everybody you have a great

Rest of your day Merry Christmas and we’ll see you on the next video