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© Thomson Reuters 2022.Ukrainian forces take up new positions as Putin hails Luhansk victory
By Tom Balmforth and Max Hunder KYIV©2025 GPlusMedia Inc.
43 Comments
Yrral
War is hell,Putin open up the gates of hell in Ukraine, Google AP Hell In Ukraine
quercetum
Ukrainian forces retreat as Russia redraw strategy lines.
stormcrow
This is going to be long and bloody. In a way it looks kind of like the U.S. Civil War, except the South didn’t have a superpower backing it up.
Cricky
From the videos it would appear the taking of Luhansk was a Chechen victory, not a Russian one. A very effective mercenary force it would seem. But then they are well led and not drunk constantly.
Laguna
Russia is mistaken if they think a simple end of the war means an end of the conflict. Aside from confiscating and selling overseas assets of the oligarchs, a method might be to set a purchase ceiling of $30/barrel for Russian oil, market it at, say, $40, and use the difference to rebuild Ukraine.
The Avenger
Russia = war criminal, genocidal, terrorist state. And the Russian people, through willful ignorance or neglect, are complicit. Please, make the sanctions bite. Make the Russians actually live the primitive conditions their foreign adventures espouse and are inflicting on Ukraine. Let the Russians eat borsch (and that's putting it politely!)
Antiquesaving
This is what I mean by inaccurate and exaggerated.
First Russia didn't even come close to the "full might" of it's forces if it has we would have been looking at tens of thousands more troops, more artillery, etc..
As for biggest battle in generations.
Ok pushing the "generation" to the accepted used 25 year then we fall into "a" generation or have our collective memories become so short.
The war in Bosnia lasted over 3 years and consisted of a larger number of troops overall, the seige of Sarajevo lastest again over 3 years, nearly 100,000 troops and 14,000 dead soldiers and civilians.
Yes this was a big battle but please try and stick to facts and reality.
Antiquesaving
How about this also:
Saudi Arabia/USA = war criminal, genocidal, terrorist state. And the Saudi and American people, through willful ignorance or neglect, are complicit. Where are the WMD and 150,000 Yemeni civilians dead.
Cognac
Russian never tried to capture Kyiv, disinformation at its best
Tom San
Has Putin surrendered yet?
Cricky
Speculation not my thing, seeing Chechen soldiers with Chechen flags yelling Allah Aka-bar in Luhansk, your connection of the two? You are deliberately attaching two different topics to protect both your own narrative and the continued myth of protecting Russian speakers. 90,000 people have fled that city rather than wait for Russian liberation.
RichardPearce
There's so much spin, torque, and outright flights of fantasy in the article it made me dizzy.
Antiquesaving
I wonder if you understand what war is?
90,000 fled where which way? It doesn't even matter!
You do realise it doesn't matter what side you support but if 2 armies are about to engage eachother on your doorstep, if you have any sense of survival you get the heck out if there.
The fact civilians flee a battle sight doesn't mean they support or don't support one side or the other, it means they don't want to be in the crossfire.
Why this needs to be explained is a good example if how people just take what the propaganda throws their way.
Antiquesaving
Well all the support and weapons won't really help if there are no troops.
Ukraine has banned fighting age men from leaving the country, it has now requested and gotten support/agreement from western countries to no longer admit fighting aged men as refugees.
Ukraine has been bleeding soldiers far beyond the official casualties it claims, it has a massive desertion problem with Russia now long past 10,000 POWs (red cross and UN confirm at least 10,000).
The bravado in these articles would be ok if at least some sense of facts and figures were included. But it is all just propaganda and no facts to back it up, on the contrary when we look for facts they contradict the claims and bravado.
Yrral
Lots of Ukraine are naive and insecure at best,who would like to be told ,you are corrupt ,and cannot be trusted,only someone with low self esteem
The Avenger
We'll see if the Russian forces will halt their advance after the recapture the territory of the Donetsk People's Republic. With the former Oblasts of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, Kharkov, Sumy and Zaporizhzhia and parts of other Oblasts under Russian control that leaves the Ukraine with about 70% of its former population and a port -Odessa - on the Black Sea. Should be a viable state if they do not provoke Russia again.
Yrral
Laguna,only way Putin will pay a price is Nato,forces march right into the Kremlin and give Putin a bill for the war,get real dude
Desert Tortoise
NATO needs to train and equip four or five brigades of Ukrainian soldiers and teach them to fight the NATO way with NATO supplied western arms and they better do it darned soon. This would require about 40,000 men, which Ukraine has.
u_s__reamer
The shameless Russians should enjoy their phony peace amid the devastated landscape of rubble and ruins while they can because the folks who just left will soon be back with bigger guns to finish the job.
Yrral
DT,the US is only thing Russian fear,they will be in the US way,the US sent 500 men's to Somali to fight an army of 10 thousands
Antiquesaving
The Avenger
Today 09:49 am JST
If it was ok for the west and NATO to take Kosovo away from Serbia, then using the same logic it should be fine for Russia to do the same in Ukraine concerning ethnic Russian area.
The argument is that Serbia was not treating the ethnic Albania right and they were in danger.
Well since 2014 Ukraine has mimicked Serbian with anti Russian language laws, now banning Russian literature and music, it even elevated a know ethnic cleansing groups OUN UPA to national hero status.
The double standard smells just as much as Putin's claims as the reason for the invasion both are false and fake.
Blacklabel
before we send more money, it would be nice to get an accounting of where the money already sent has gone.
Attilathehungry
Blacklabel, in a country like Ukraine that is infamous for corruption and political scandal, you may be waiting a long time to get any serious account of where the money went.
lincolnman
Sure Vlad, take a victory bow....with the blood of thousands of innocent Ukrainian women and children on your hands...
While Ukraine is littered with Russian tanks without their turrets and dead Russian soldiers left behind by their comrades...
While your proud flagship Moskva collects rust at the bottom of the Black Sea...
Take a bow along with your Generals - or maybe General as there is only one left alive...
And why don't you also congratulate yourself for Sweden and Finland joining NATO bringing over one million new troops to the Alliance...
And take a victory lap for taking your country's economy below third-world standards - by defaulting on its bonds and debt...
You're "winning", in the best Trumpian sense...
Yrral
Will,it got your attention,it must of been very persuasive
Antiquesaving
A great example of not knowing facts.
Yep Russia lost the Mokva. But you see how western propaganda works.
Ukraine has lost nearly all its navy ships including it's flagship, it refuses to name several but yes western military analyst know the count, funny coincidence is that Ukrainian ships sunk are nearly all claimed to have been scuttled to avoid capture, Russia claims it sunk XYZ Ukrainian navy ship, Ukraine counters with "no we scuttled it" .
Officially the Ukrainian claim to have sunk 6 Russian ships or boat including a tug boat.
While the Ukrainian loses are 20 vessels sunk or captured including the Ukrainian flag ship.
This is what I mean about propaganda reporting. We all heard about the Moskva but the news was silent about the Hetman Sahaidachny etc...
Yrral
Will,the majority are Ukrainain citizen fighting in Donbas,with Russia
Wakarimasen
And yet we keep being told that Ukraine can win this thing.......
And so it drags on and on with ever greater areas of Ukraine being destroyed And its people suffering.
Send more money and weapons. That will surely fix things.
Will be nice to one day get a post mortem on exactly who profited from all this carnage.
Strangerland
Who keeps telling you that?
Strangerland
But you said they "keep" telling you.
Sounds like one person said it once.
ok1517
Let Putin hail as much as he wants to.
Facts are that he is a pariah inter nations already, that Russia didn't really gain anything, except for what they looted, that Putin and his aggressors will be war criminals for now and all times. What a legacy.
lincolnman
Hmmmm.....so you think the Moska is still doing port calls? Talk about deluded...
Pure Kremlin propaganda...without any basis in fact. Like all over-the-top Russian disinformation, it's laughable...
And Russia says they all collided with icebergs...LOL...
A topic you practice here everyday...
Antiquesaving
Really? Now lets cut the propaganda and look at facts fewer than 40 countries are backing sanctions, the include only mostly white Europeans with the exception of South Korea and Japan, they make up around 800 million at most.
That leaves over 155 countries that are still find doing business with Russia including India the largest Democracy in the world with 1.3 billion people China 1.4 billion all of Africa, South and Central America the middle East and Asia.
Seems obvious that the world is united junk is just that junk!
As several leaders of former French and British colonial rules countries put it.
" Europe dragged our people into two worlds war, we are not interested in their 3rd"
North Africa nations interested, India and Pakistan two long time rivals agree they want nothing to do with this war,
So no Putin and Russia don't care.
ok1517
Blacklabel,
I said it, and I say it again.
Winning a battle ain't winning the war!
Ukraine will come back when provided with all the support they need against this "Superpower".
Antiquesaving
Except I got most of it from western news accounts, western military sites, BBC, CNN Ukrainian MOD site list of lost ships USA military reports, etc..
Sorry if facts bother you.
Blacklabel
they already got 54 billion dollars from just the USA alone.
How much more you planning for others to give them as "all the support they need" to win?