In Reply to: Shocking! Traitor in Chief sides with Putin and... posted by bluebellknoll on August 16, 2025 at 07:06:56
Putin was looking for a concession of the Donbas from Trump.
The key logistical hub in the Donbas is Pokrovsk, which Russians are just outside of the city. The entire city is surrounded on 3 sides with only 1 key road going into it. It is the central hub of a series of fortress cities that people thought would fall in the winter but continues to hold out.
A few days ago prior to the talks, north of Pokrovsk Russia had a 17 km/10.5 mile narrow infantry breakthrough, taking over poorly manned Ukrainian fortifications.
The info was mixed. Was this a bunch of soldiers on motorcycles? (Russia can't bring up armor because they are being taken out by drones.) Was this the Ukrainian lines finally bursting due to a lack of soldiers? Would this collapse the Pokrovsk cauldron?
It has been pretty scary for a few days, but the Azov regiment (the same group that refused to give up in Mariupol) came in and cut off 200+ Russian soldiers from supplies. There is a key road that either would cut Ukraine's army in two or Russians from supplies and it looks like Ukraine took it over by sending their elite reserves.
There has been talk of thousands of Russians in reserve being moved to exploit the breakthrough, with Ukrainians also on the move to match it. Other reports have mentioned that this is a political move for the Alaska summit, with it being unsustainable by Russia. It looks like the later but it's still too early to tell.
It was nail-biting time for a few days.
This week, Ukraine has hit a bunch of refineries as they have been about to reopen with hopes of making Russia pay for repairs that would destroy, and put their repair equipment in harm's way.
Ukraine won a 6 billion dollar suit against Russia for I believe, taking over gas infrastructure in Ukraine occupied territory. They are now looking for ways to seize payments to Russia at that dollar amount.