Let's get a beer outside in this nice afternoon, North Koreans just broke the internet with an invaluable source of memes and GIFs.

Speaking of WW3, China is about to sign a security contract with the Solomons. Meaning the South China sea is now Chinese. Washington is not amused.

Who’da thunked it. Pacific flashpoint not Taiwan but the Solomons.

What‘s it say?

"We should better have ed off in the first place."

where is Orsk disappeared?

From the BBC Is this the beginning of the end? Or just the end of the beginning?

Very interesting. Good news for Kyiv, Sumy and the areas so far untouched. But if the Russians concentrate on Donbas, this probably also means keeping the landbridge from Crimea to the Donbas.

But on balance, rather a good sign I think. If true.

Lots of different claims flying around, almost impossible to filter out what may be true, some other examples of major rumours today.

• NATO claims 20 out of 120 Russian battalions are no longer combat effective.
• High end of NATO estimates of Russian deaths now 40,000.
• Colonel Yuri Medvedev was deliberately run over by one of his own tanks after his 37th Motor Rifle Brigade suffered huge losses.
• Russian troops are being pulled from local trouble spots which lack of military presence the locals are now taking advantage of, like in Tajikistan, Nagorno-Karabakh, Georgia
• 3,000 Russians have surrendered in the Ukrainian counterattack around Kiev
• Russian troops in the North West are running very short of supplies due to the sabotage of the Belarus railway to Ukraine.

These rumours seem to have "more legs" than the crazier ones running around, we will just have to wait a while to see if there is any truth in them.

I really hope so. My anger towards the Russian government is high for what they have done and I really want them to get what is coming to them, preferably with the aid of the Russian people (those that aren't brainwashed at least) doing their best to initiate a regime change. I do feel sorry for the Russians that will suffer in the coming months, but they need to know how and why it happened.

the bridge can be easily destroyed

They blame the West, Nato and the Americans.
They don't see the images with children taken to hospitals because they were severely injured during air raids. They don't see the fight for Life that those Ukrainian doctors put in hospitals that could be bombarded any time. They don't see the refugees that come to the bordering countries, they don't listen to their stories.
It's North Korea there.
Don't get your hopes too high.

The Russian defence ministry has admitted 1,351 Russian soldiers have died since the start of its so-called “special military operation” in Ukraine, the Russian Interfax news agency reports.

In other news, Russia also said their sportsmen and women had never ever cheated, by taking performance enhancing drugs.

Is Sergey Shoigu included in that number?

Russia now claiming it is doing military manoeuvres in its far, far east (The Japanese Northern Territories). Don’t they need the diesel fuel in the west?

Amusing tweet about Sergey here.

Now over a month since the invasion, the Russian army has gained little territory but continues to pound urban areas to rubble so murdering countless civilians.

The only reasons I can think of for their lackluster performance despite having a very high military budget is first that most of the money found its way into the pockets of oligarchs instead of being used to modernise, equip and train and secondly they were given unrealistic goals.

Ukraine has captured one of Russia's most advanced electronic systems capable of jamming AWACS, from the photo it looks like it was abandoned; no sign of damage.
It is believe being shipped to a grateful US.

Begs the question of "what happens to the Russian army currently spread across most of Ukraine".

I doubt they will abandon them so they will still need to supply them or they pack up and go home, all the while under attack.

I'm closely following an overview of the situation from the Ukrainian side and I believe that most of these claims are unfortunately far from truth. More like wishful thinking. Same as the claim of the US that the city of Kherson was deoccupied yesterday was untrue.

Shoigone