Still shaping the narrative I see.

Willy OAM
I served in the Australian Infantry from 2014-2021, With specialist qualifications in Heavy Weapons/Anti-Armour, Combat First Aid, With a tour to Afghanistan as a crew commander of a Armoured Mobility Vehicle.
Upon my Return I was unexpectedly diagnosed with a Incurable and Inoperable Brain tumour that is slowly killing me. I was also awarded the Queens Order of Australia Medal (OAM) hence the post nominals after my name. Then Being medically separated from the Army I flew to Ukraine in 2022 for 6.5months and now make content full time. I really appreciate you being here Thankyou

I’ve found him to be knowledgeable on military tactics and evenhanded in his reporting. While he would like to see Ukraine prevail– he is trying to be neutral in his analysis.

He provides mostly daily updates, though he is beginning a new round of treatments for brain cancer and that has affected the timing of his broadcasts. He also flew to Israel and provided analysis of the beginning of the Israeli strikes into Gaza and later Lebanon.

He might provide you with another source to add to what you’re reading now. This is his latest broadcast.

Huge Strikes – Russia Launches An ICBM | Future Reality For Crimea – Ukraine Map Update
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dnu6GTikrM

I don’t hate good intel. But I do think we need to be skeptical. For instance– your using Ukraine’s casualty figures for Russian losses. Why should we believe them? Ukraine is in the business of propaganda when it comes to the war.
Just as are organizations like ISW. The key is balancing the opposing sources and look at how they frame their “data”. This can help determining something approximating reality.

I’m not finding much from you but ad hominem attacks. I need data/estimates that are grounded in something more than “mounting evidence that Russia is beginning to teeter”. That is narrative.
And framing everything in relation to 2022 is narrative. This is not the same war that was being fought in 2022. Russia learned from it’s disastrous assumptions that they were going to be met with flowers as they rode into Kyiv.
Remember when the narrative was Russia was running out of missiles and their troops were fighting with shovels? I’m not accusing you of saying things like that, but that was the narrative for a time.

I have watched the support in Ukraine for the war dwindle this year, as the realities of the destruction was brought home. If the Ukrainian people had an opportunity to vote (which they don’t under martial law) and they voted to settle the war, would you support their decision?

That would be a good start– to have an election or a referendum on continuing the war. In fact, once and if there are negotiations led by President Trump, it would be useful for a pause to the fighting and allow the Ukrainian people vote on whether to accept any deal.

‘Exploiting Cadavers ’and ‘Faked IEDs’: Experts Debunk Staged Pre-War ‘Provocation’ in the Donbas

Editor’s note: This article contains and links to imagery which some readers may find disturbing

But one suspicious video, which showed a gruesome scene of charred bodies and human skulls that seemed to have been sliced open, appeared so serious and egregious that Bellingcat decided to investigate further, speaking to an explosive weapons expert and a forensic pathologist in the process.

What they told us was that an apparent IED (improvised explosive device) attack used by separatist and Russian media as evidence of Ukraine’s aggression included the staged use of cadavers and likely faked IED damage.
******
Unusual Injuries

The injuries caused to the three alleged fatalities immediately aroused suspicion after graphic footage depicting their charred state emerged. In a detail first noticed by the Twitter account @glastnostgone and reported by the independent US media website Grid News, one of the bodies (Casualty A) appeared to have an unusual injury for a person impacted by an IED. These injuries included what appeared to be clear cuts on both sides of the head, cleanly separating the skull cap from the rest of the skull.
****
Dr. Lawrence Owens Research Fellow at the University of Winchester replied, noting that the cuts were clearly from an autopsy procedure, and that, given the context, Casualty A in Vehicle 1 would have been dead before the explosion.

Open-Source research like that is why Russia and pro-Russia Americans hate Bellingcat…

Bellingcat (stylised bell¿ngcat) is a Netherlands-based investigative journalism group that specialises in fact-checking and open-source intelligence (OSINT). It was founded by British citizen journalist and former blogger Eliot Higgins in July 2014. Bellingcat publishes the findings of both professional and citizen journalist investigations into war zones, human rights abuses, and the criminal underworld. The site’s contributors also publish guides to their techniques, as well as case studies.

Bellingcat began as an investigation into the use of weapons in the Syrian civil war. Its reports on the Russo-Ukrainian War (including the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17), the El Junquito raid, the Yemeni Civil War, the poisoning of Alexei Navalny and the poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal, and the killing of civilians by the Cameroon Armed Forces have attracted international attention.

Russians and pro-Russia Americans hate Bellingcat…

Who We Are

Bellingcat is an independent investigative collective of researchers, investigators and citizen journalists brought together by a passion for open source research.

Founded in 2014, we have pioneered the use of open source research methods to investigate a variety of subjects of public interest. These range from the shooting down of flight MH17 over eastern Ukraine to police violence in Colombia and the illegal wildlife trade in the UAE. Our research is regularly referenced by international media and has been cited by several courts and investigative missions.

We design and share verifiable methods of ethical digital investigation. By publishing walkthroughs to open source research methods and holding tailored training sessions on their use for journalists, human rights activists and members of the public, we’re broadening the scope and application of open source research.

With over 30 staff and contributors in more than 20 countries, we operate in a unique field where advanced technology, forensic research, journalism, transparency and accountability come together.

We believe in the need for collaboration and have partnered with news organisations across the globe. Likewise, Bellingcat’s Global Authentication Project (GAP) seeks to harness the power of the open source community by nurturing and encouraging a network of volunteer investigators. Our Justice & Accountability unit, meanwhile, seeks to demonstrate the viability of online open source information in judicial processes.

Did I mention that Russians and pro-Russia Americans hate Bellingcat? Yes I did…good.

We are 2 years into the war (or half way if Russia can continue fighting at this pace (or something like it) for 2 more years. So now we’re speculating which army is going to run out of soldiers first.

This is why discussing with you is useless. Akin to trying to carry on a discussion with a Progressive, i.e., just lots of muddy water and few if any actual facts…

Since you linked to The Economist..

We just had a discussion on “sources” not being reliable. I don’t consider Economist to be reliable or unreliable. As I said in the November 9, 2024 at 10:46 am comment on deceptive, wrong, mistaken, etc. that readers & commenters need to double-check anything they read—including links that neo uses as “sources”.

Also, this is exactly why I made the Open-Source Intelligence comment at November 19, 2024 at 10:54 pm, and suggested you use “sources” that actually have Open-Source proof in them. You don’t use them for a reason – you are a pro-Russia/Iran American, and you don’t want actual facts.

I also linked to Bellingcat as one of the Top Dogs in the Open-Source Intelligence info, and the ISW Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, November 19, 2024 article which used Open-Source info to show that Russia is the one suffering the most from manpower shortages—shortages that will become worse in 2025.

Show me Open-Source intel – not speculation and/or pro-Russia right-wing American propaganda and/or Russian propaganda…

The problem is not so much the loss of territory, which is limited and has come at enormous cost to Russia—600,000 dead and wounded since the start of the war, on American estimates, and 57,000 dead this year to October alone, according to Ukrainian intelligence. It is the steady erosion in the size and quality of Ukraine’s forces. Ukrainian units are under-strength and overstretched, worn thin by heavy casualties. Despite a new mobilisation law that took effect in May, the army, outside a handful of brigades, has struggled to recruit enough replacements, with young men reluctant to sign up to tours of duty that are at best indefinite and, at worst, one-way missions. Western partners are privately urging Ukraine’s leaders to lower the mobilisation age floor from 25 to increase the potential pool of recruits. But political sensitivities and fears over an already alarming demographic crisis stand in the way of any change.

On manpower, too, Russia remains solvent. Its army is recruiting around 30,000 men per month, says the NATO official. That is less than government targets, but is still enough to cover even the gargantuan losses of recent months.

Russia cannot fight for ever. But the worry among American, European and Ukrainian officials is that Ukraine’s breaking point will come first. “Moscow seems to be wagering that it can achieve its objectives in the Donbas next year,” writes Mr Watling, “and impose a rate of casualties and material degradation on the Ukrainian military high enough that it will no longer be capable of preventing further advances.” That, he warns, would give Russia leverage in any negotiations that follow.

The gloomy mood is evident in a shift in America’s language. Senior officials like Mr Austin still strike a confident note, promising that Ukraine will win. Those involved in the guts of planning in the Pentagon say that, in practice, the ambitions of early 2023—a Ukrainian force that could take back its territory or shock Russia into talks through a well-crafted armoured punch—have given way to a narrow focus on preventing defeat. “At this point we are thinking more and more about how Ukraine can survive,” says a person involved in that planning.

Ukraine is now struggling to cling on, not to win
https://www.economist.com/europe/2024/10/29/ukraine-is-now-struggling-to-cling-on-not-to-win