Category: Essays And Commentaries

Long essays or op-ed length commentaries on the issues of the day or on topics of special interest.

Picking the Republican candidates to vote for in the Arizona August 2nd primary

2:04 pm

Liberty enlightening the world

As the August 2nd primary approaches here in Arizona, it is now the time to make some preliminary decisions on who to vote for. Below are my recommendations for statewide office as well as my congressional district, followed by my reasoning behind each choice.

First, however, I must note that I consider the August primary for the Republican candidates to be the real election. No matter who is chosen in the Democratic Party primaries, I would consider that candidate to be captured by the communists and anti-American bigots who now run that party. Thus, I couldn’t vote for any, not without seeing some major house-cleaning and change. Since there is no evidence of any Democrats making any effort to do this, the only important decision I see for voters is to decide who is the least likely Republican to lie to us and actually do what they say.

Now for my personal candidate choices. To make these decisions, I did some research, using the links provided by Ballotpedia. With each candidate, I reviewed supplementing my knowledge of them from other reading by reviewing their websites. At a minimum I urge my readers to do the same, in whatever state they live in. Ballotpedia is a magnificent non-partisan resource. It doesn’t take long to do this work, and it gives you a better educated basis for making your decisions.

I also fully recognize that there are no guarantees, and that my choices here may change before August 2nd. Right now however, with the knowledge at hand, these picks are the best I can do. And as always I welcome further intelligent and informative comments from my readers below.
» Read more

13 comments

How the localized nature of Democrat vote tampering will influence the 2022 election

3:47 pm

Based on the ample evidence of election fraud, corruption, and vote tampering done repeatedly by Democrats nationwide during the 2020 election, we can expect these politicians and their minions to commit similar election crimes in the upcoming 2022 mid-term elections, especially because the effort by some Republicans to reform their state election systems in the key purple states was so effectively blocked by Democrats, by many quisling Republicans, and by a willing leftist press.

It is however important to understand where that election tampering was done in 2020 in order to understand the election fraud to come, as well as creating a strategy to prevent it. As real estate agents like to say, “Location is everything!”, and it appears this applies to election fraud as well.

Summary slide outlining Powell voter fraud allegations
The 2020 fraud in Democratically-controlled Fulton County (Atlanta), Georgia.

In 2020, in states that were purple and where the final result was in doubt, the Democrats took advantage of their total control of the local urban voting districts in those states — where there are very few Republican voters — to tilt the results. In such places (Philadelphia, New York, Atlanta, Detroit, Phoenix) the government is essentially a one-party Democrat operation. Many election districts in these cities have no Republican election judges at all. If the Democrats wish to commit election fraud, there is no one looking over their shoulder to question them, with some districts actually taking aggressive action in 2020 to illegally keep Republican poll watchers out.

Thus we saw strong evidence in all of these cities of pro-Democrat ballot-stuffing, of all types, from fake ballots to ballots counted multiple times to evidence the votes on the ballots themselves were changed by computer. The fraud however was strongly localized to these urban centers controlled by Democrats. The vote tampering was able to tilt the statewide results. but not the local contests.

For example, Democrat mayors in Wisconsin teamed up to have drop boxes placed illegally in unsupervised locations, where Democratic Party mules could stuff them with thousands of harvested ballots. The Wisconsin Supreme Court finally ruled on July 8, 2022 that these boxes were illegal, and violated the plain language of the state’s election laws:
» Read more

21 comments

How to find the least dishonest politician to vote for

3:54 pm

The American flag

As the state election primaries roll on from state to state, conservative Americans today have a difficult problem: How to determine which Republican candidate is the least likely to stick a knife in our back once we have elected them into office and they have power.

My phrasing here is no accident. Politicians by definition are never to be trusted. Never. The problem is that some can be trusted less than others. To find out who to vote for you need to determine who is least likely to break the promises they make during the campaign trail.

I am also only talking about Republicans, because for me based on the history of the last three decades, there is no Democrat worthy of my vote. That party has become so corrupt and power-hungry that it needs a full house-cleaning before I would ever again trust any of its candidates. Worse, in the past four years it has also begun to endorse and campaign for some downright sick policies, from aggressive blackballing and the arrest of its opponents to including the teaching of the queer sexual agenda to very young school children. Such people must be removed from power, for the sake of everyone.

Let me now show you how I have determined who I will vote for in the Republican Senate primary in Arizona to choose who will run against Democrat Senator Mark Kelly. The primary election is on August 2nd, but early mail-in voting begins on July 6th, so now is the time to start making decisions.

The leading candidates are as follows:
» Read more

30 comments

Why we really celebrate the Fourth of July

6:00 am

The Declaration of Independence

If you really want to know why the Fourth of July has been the quintessential American holiday since the founding our this country, you need only return to the words of the document that became public to the world on that day.

Below the fold is the full text of the Declaration. Read it. It isn’t hard to understand, even if the style comes from the late 1700s. Its point however is clear. Governments that abuse the rights of the citizenry don’t deserve to be in power. The most important quote of course is right near the beginning:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed — that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. [emphasis mine]

What a radical concept — a nation founded on the principle of allowing its citizens to pursue happiness.

Right now, however, we have a federal government in America that more fits the description of King George III’s Great Britain in 1776 in the Declaration. The corrupt elitist uni-Party of federal elected officials and the federal bureaucracy in Washington has for too long run roughshod over the general population. If you take the time to read the full text of the Declaration, you will be astonished at the remarkable conceptual similarity between the abuses that Jefferson describes coming from Great Britain and the many abuses of power that are now legion and common by the uni-Party in Washington.

When November comes the American public will likely have its last chance to overthrow the political wing of the uni-Party, led by the Democratic Party. The Republicans are no saints, but at least that party contains within it many decent politicians who honor the Constitution, the rule of law, and the Bill of Rights. Many are right now campaigning on those ideals. Based on the past six years, we now know that no one in the Democratic Party honors those values. What they honor is blacklisting, racism, segregation, anti-American hate, and above all power. If they are not removed from office, they will ramp up that power, in league with quislings like Romney and Cornyn in the Republican Party, to further corrupt our Constitutional government.

These people do not like losing power. The longer they hold it, the more they will work to undermine the election system to make sure they do not lose. The corruption and election fraud in 2020 election was merely a dress rehearsal of what these goons will do if they have the chance next year.

In fact, November 2022 might very well be the last election that has any chance of producing legitimate results. Americans had better not waste this last chance.
» Read more

38 comments

In 2022 freedom continues to fuel the launch industry towards new records

4:27 pm

With 2022 now half over, we can now get a quick sense of the state of the world’s rocket industry by the number of launches that have so far been accomplished this year.

Last year was the most successful year in rocketry since the launch of Sputnik in 1957. Both nations and private companies managed to launch successfully 134 times, one more than the previous record in 1975. Similarly, with 48 launches in 2021, the U.S. completed the most launches since the height of the 1960s space race, 48 total.

These high numbers last year also suggested that the growth was not a one time thing, but based on a wider sustained growth that would continue.

It now appears that both these records will be smashed in 2022. Below is a graph showing the total number of successful launches year-by-year by the United States since Sputnik, as of June 30, 2022.
» Read more

8 comments

The utter failure and total evil of government policies during the Wuhan panic

11:07 am

COVID mortality rates among children 10-14 in the UK
COVID mortality rates among children 10-14 in the United Kingdom,
comparing those who got the COVID shots versus those who did not

While stories about the ineffective and harmful consequences of the panic over the Wuhan flu continue to pour in on an almost daily basis, it is often better to step back and see these many stories in aggregate. By looking at the forest from a distance, a clearer picture frequently reveals itself that remains hidden if you only focus on studying the individual trees.

For example, the graph to the right, first published in January 2022, suggests strongly that giving young children the COVID shots only increased their mortality. This is just one story, however. Is it typical, or an outlier? You need to look at the larger picture to know.

Below I list and categorize the many science papers and news stories I have been collecting since my previous detailed two essays in May about the epidemic and its consequences (see: “The evidence keeps pouring in showing the utter failure of all COVID mandates” and “Are the COVID vaccines killing people over time? The data suggests yes.”). The totality of this data does appear shocking, especially because it makes evident the utter failure of almost every policy set by almost every government health official and elected politician since the Wuhan flu arrived in 2020.

First we must take another look at the new research about the mask mandates, policies that decades of research repeatedly showed would do nothing to protect anyone from COVID, and might even be unhealthy.
» Read more

16 comments

Has work begun on a dedicated helicopter mission to Mars?

12:42 pm

Overview map

The easternmost point in the Mars Helicopter traverse
Click for full image.

In my routine searches through the image archive for the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, I recently came upon several images labeled “Candidate Mars Science Helicopter Traverse” that I at first thought referred to Ingenuity’s extended mission in Jezero Crater.

A closer look however revealed these photos have nothing to do with Ingenuity or Jezero Crater. Taken in November ’21, January ’22, and March ’22, the images instead cover parts of the south rim of Valles Marineris, the solar system’s largest canyon, and appear to be research for a future dedicated Mars helicopter mission. The overview map above shows the location of these photos by the black dots. Three locations have each been imaged twice to produce a stereoscopic view that can precisely measure the topography.

The photo to the right, cropped and reduced to post here, shows the easternmost image, taken November 3, 2021. Not only does it show ample flat areas, the picture captures an impressive avalanche flow coming down from that southern interior canyon slope.

All the images were requested by planetary scientist Edwin Kite of the University of Chicago. Though I tried several times to contact Dr. Kite to get more information, he unfortunately did not respond. It could be this work is still too preliminary and thus he does not wish to comment.

Nonetheless, the extent of the three sets of images give us a fair idea of the kind of missions Kite and others might be considering. From east to west the distance between the images is about four hundred miles, and covers a traverse of the southern interior slopes of Valles Marineris along that entire length. The photos look mostly at the base of the canyon’s slope, each showing clearly that a helicopter flying there would have plenty of landing spots.

Obviously this first dedicated Mars helicopter mission might not cover this entire distance. Right now these images could simply be the first tentative research on choosing potential landing areas. Regardless, it appears that at least one scientist has already concluded that Ingenuity has proven such helicopter missions make sense, and is beginning to target one of Mars’s most spectacular locations, Valles Marineris, for that mission.

6 comments

Our oppressive federal government really does want to squash SpaceX

10:35 am

Targeted by the government for destruction
Targeted by the government for destruction

In order to understand the full context of the FAA’s environmental reassessment of SpaceX’s Boca Chica facility in Texas and its approval of Starship/Superheavy launches there, it is important to take a closer look at the entire document [pdf] that was released on June 13, 2022. While that approval will now allow SpaceX to proceed, the nature of the document shows us that this government permission has been given very reluctantly, and that there are factions in the federal bureaucracy that are working hard to lay the groundwork to block it at first opportunity.

First, what did the reassessment conclude about the impact of future heavy-lift rocket launches at Boca Chica?

In summary, the FAA concluded that SpaceX’s planned operations “would not result in significant environmental consequences.” [emphasis mine] It then proceeded to provide many pages of analysis for each of the following issues, with almost all coming to the same exact conclusion [emphasis mine]:
» Read more

11 comments

SLS’s 2nd mobile launcher to cost more than $1.5 billion, 3x what was initially budgeted

11:47 am

SLS's two mobile launchers, costing $1 billion
NASA’s bloated SLS mobile launchers

According to an inspector general report [pdf] released today, the second mobile launcher being built by the company Bechtel to transport its SLS rocket from the assembly building to the launch site is likely going to cost more than $1.5 billion, three times what was initially budgeted, and will not be completed any earlier than the end of 2027, four years behind schedule.

Compounding Bechtel’s projected cost increases and schedule delays, an ML-2 [mobile launcher-2] project analysis provided only a 3.9 percent confidence level that the nearly $1 billion cost [twice the original budget] and October 2025 [2.5 years late] delivery estimates were accurate. NASA requires projects to develop budgets and schedules consistent with a 70 percent joint cost and schedule confidence level (JCL), meaning a 70 percent likelihood the project will finish equal to or less than the planned costs and schedule. In fact, an Independent Review Team analysis determined the project would require an additional $447 million and 27 months, for a total contract value of $1.5 billion and a launcher delivery date of December 2027—a schedule that would enable an Artemis IV launch no earlier than the end of 2028.

The first mobile launcher, shown on the left in the graphic, cost more than $1 billion and will used only three times, at most. The second, on the right, is required for all of the assigned interplanetary tasks being given to the full size version of SLS beyond those first three test flights. Without it that version of SLS cannot launch. And even if the launcher is ready by 2028, as the IG report suggests, that will be more than a decade behind schedule, and six years from now.
» Read more

23 comments

The Ukraine War: After a third month of fighting the battlelines clarify

11:04 am

The Ukraine War as of May 5, 2022
The Ukraine War as of May 5, 2022. Click for full map.

The Ukraine War as of May 5, 2022
The Ukraine War as of June 6, 2022. Click for full map.

With more than three months of fighting since Russian began its unprovoked invasion of the Ukraine in late February and a full month since my last update on May 6th, it is time to do another follow-up to get a clear assessment of the war.

The two maps to the right are simplified versions of those produced daily by the Institute for the Study of War (ISW). For their full interactive version go here. The top map comes from its May 5th assessment, while the bottom map comes from its assessment on June 6th. The red hatched areas are regions Russia captured in 2014. The red areas are regions the Russians have captured in this invasion and now fully control. The pink areas are regions they have occupied but do not fully control. Blue regions are areas the Ukraine has recaptured. The blue hatched area is where local Ukrainians have had some success resisting Russian occupation.

Though the changes since early May are small, they make clear that the war’s battlelines have now become very clear. While Russia is very slowly but successfully taking ground in the center regions of its invasion, the Ukraine has been just as slowly but successfully retaking territory at the invasion’s outer edges.
» Read more

77 comments

The oppressive and ignorant blacklisting culture that now dominates politics

12:50 pm

Most of all beware this boy.’
As noted by the Spirit of Christmas Present in Dickens’
The Christmas Carol, ‘This boy is ignorance, this girl is want.
Beware them both, but most of all beware this boy.’

While today’s blacklisting essay is mostly about one specific story, what it really does is illustrate starkly the overall ugliness and ignorance that fuels the blackballing, and how that ugliness and ignorance has seeped into every aspect of our political and cultural lives.

In a story that is hardly unique or surprising, the Los Angeles City Council last week passed a new regulation that bans the use of any gas appliances in new construction, both residential and commercial.

The council’s reasons for imposing this ban — as is usual for such bans — was based not on any actual documented problem that presently exists but on a fear that one might someday occur. From the opening paragraph of the actual motion:

As the gravity and urgency of the climate emergency become more apparent with each passing year of rising temperatures, dangerous wildfires, and more severe droughts—all of which disproportionately impact communities of color and the most vulnerable Angelenos—the City of Los Angeles must do all in its power to reduce its carbon emissions and move toward a sustainable, zero-carbon economy. [emphasis mine]

Note the highlighted words. » Read more

37 comments

A look at World View, one of two balloon companies about to offer high altitude tourist flights

11:09 am

An artist's impression of a Worldview tourist balloon in flight
An artist’s impression of a World View tourist balloon in flight

The future of space tourism is not going to be limited to rockets, no matter how romantic those rockets might be. For a lot of people, getting into space might not be a good option simply because of cost. Moreover, even if one could afford the cheaper suborbital flights presently offered by Blue Origin and are promised someday from Virgin Galactic, the short length of the journey, no more than ten minutes in space, could for many people make these flights not worth doing.

There is an alternative however, one that won’t get you into space, but will fly you high enough that you will be above 90% of the atmosphere, see the curve of the Earth, and get to do it for hours for far less money. This alternative comes from the high altitude balloon companies that are now working hard to begin flying tourists sometime in the next two years.

There are presently two American companies on the verge of flying tourists to up about 20 miles altitude. One is Space Perspective in Florida. If all goes as planned, it will begin flying passengers on its Neptune balloon by ’24, at a ticket price of $125K per head. It is presently accepting reservations with a $1,000 deposit.

The second company is Tucson-based World View. Up until 2019 the company had been planning to fly tourists, but a change in leadership brought on by its failure to meet the terms of a local development deal caused it to put those plans aside. Then in 2021 it restarted those plans.

Tickets will cost $50,000 per person, with World View providing what it calls “flexible financing options.” The company expects the first flight no earlier than early 2024.

At the moment about 1000 people have put down a deposit of $500 for a flight.

Both companies will be offering flights lasting most of one day, with additional pre- and post-flight activities.

On May 18, 2022, I attended an event held by World View at its Tucson headquarters. The event showcased the company’s talent, its facilities, and the value of hi-tech high stratospheric balloons. To begin the event, CEO Ryan Hartman gave a short presentation describing his goals for the company and the strategy he is following to reach them. The two graphics below come from that presentation, and provide I think the clearest outline of those goals and strategy.
» Read more

12 comments

Sunspot update: In May we had sunspots, sunspots, and more sunspots!

10:31 am

It is time for another sunspot update! On June 1 NOAA released its monthly update of its graph tracking the number of sunspots on the Sun’s Earth-facing hemisphere. As I do every month, I have posted it below, having added some addition details to provide a larger context.

In May the sunspot activity on the Sun almost literally exploded, producing some of the strongest solar flares in years as well as the most sunspots since the previous solar maximum in 2014. On several days there were as many as eight sunspot groups on the Sun, with one so large that it was visible to the naked eye on Earth (if viewed properly with a protective filter).
» Read more

3 comments

Today’s blacklisted American: Long Beach to discriminate against any employee who refuses COVID jab

1:07 pm

Genocide is coming to America
If they could, the Democrats would do this to anyone who opposes them.

Blacklists are back and the Democrats have got ’em: The local government of Long Beach, California will on June 6, 2022 begin harsh discrimination and punishment against any city employee who refuses to get the COVID jab.

Anyone granted the personal exemption option must pay for weekly COVID-19 testing (rapid antigen/PCR), which can be done during city work hours, with the cost of the testing deducted from the employee’s paycheck, according to Ambrosini’s memo. Those receiving medical or religious exemptions will still be subject to weekly COVID-19 testing, but at city expense, according to the memo.

All unvaccinated city employees must continue to wear a mask of at least medical or surgical grade while at work under this new policy, according to memo. Employees not doing so are subject to disciplinary measures, up to and including termination, according to the policy.

Employees found not in compliance with the vaccination mandate will be subject to a wide range of disciplinary measures, including up to six months of suspension and then possible separation or even termination should non-compliance continue, according to the city.

The absurdity and injustice of this is even more pronounced considering the vast evidence now available to show the COVID shots don’t provide any real protection while carrying a potential health risk to those that take it. The link above, from May 11, 2022, provides links to a lot of this research. Here are just a few more examples, published in only the past few weeks:
» Read more

16 comments

The new satellite industry, energized by freedom

12:30 pm

Liberty enlightening the world
Liberty enlightening the world, both on it and in space.

Last week SpaceX successfully completed its 22nd launch in 2022, sending 59 smallsats into orbit with its Falcon 9 rocket.

In the past few decades, the launch of a smallsat would generally have not merited much further coverage. These satellites, almost always based on the 10-centimeter (or 4-inch) square cubesat design, had generally been short term objects built almost always by university students not so much to do space research as to simply learn how to build satellites and learn how they operated in orbit.

This has now all changed, fueled both by the immense drop in launch costs generated by the competition between the new rockets built by SpaceX and the new emerging smallsat rocket companies (Rocket Lab, Virgin Orbit, and Astra) and by the improved capabilities of miniaturized components. Cubesats can now do far more despite being tiny, and they can be launched for much less money.

The result has been wonderfully illustrated by the satellites launched last week on that Falcon 9. Below is a short list of the press releases in the past few days, announcing the successful activation of these satellites:
» Read more

6 comments

Musk abandons the Democrats, will vote Republican in November

1:09 pm

In another example of the leftist Marxist Democratic Party losing long time supporters, Elon Musk revealed in a podcast today that he has switched his voter registration from Democrat to independent, and now plans to vote Republican in the upcoming election.

Elon Musk, admitting he had voted “overwhelmingly” for Democrats in the past, has changed his mind.

Musk is registered as an independent voter; he announced the switch over video link at a tech summit in Miami, Florida, hosted by the All-In podcast.

“I have voted overwhelmingly for Democrats, historically,” Musk acknowledged. “Like I’m not sure, I might never have voted for a Republican, just to be clear. Now this election I will,” Newsweek reported.

Musk however is not alone. Donald Trump is actually a much more famous example, having been a typical New York liberal Democrat for decades, only to reject that party in the mid-2010s for its increasingly radical communist agenda. Trump discovered to his surprise (as has Musk) that the conservative Republican Party better reflected his personal philosophy. Both men represent large numbers of ordinary people, who see themselves as moderate liberals and now find disgusting the bigoted, hateful, and anti-American agenda of the Democratic Party.

The meme below that Musk himself posted in a tweet on April 28, 2022 illustrates this process most clearly.
» Read more

14 comments

The evidence keeps pouring in showing the utter failure of all COVID mandates

2:38 pm

Since March 2020 I have repeatedly written that the response to the Wuhan flu was an utter mindless panic that had little to do with the facts. Right off the bat, the facts, not the models, suggested the virus would resemble the flu most of all, a possible mortal threat to the sick and elderly but generally nothing more than a short sickness to the general population, with it being almost utterly harmless to the young.

Nothing that has happened since has really changed these early conclusions. I have compiled below a collection of recent studies and reports that illustrate what we have learned following the epidemic and the panic that accompanied it. Sadly, that panic did little to stop the virus, but it left us with destroyed businesses, a crushed economy, many uneducated and damaged children, and a broken Bill of Rights.

The COVID jab

The failure of the jab in the United Kingdom
Study from November 2021showing the overall uselessness of the jab
in the United Kingdom last year.

The first set of stories show some recent studies analyzing the effectiveness and safety of the COVID shots, which are not vaccines because they simply do not prevent you from getting the virus. At best — though not yet proven — they might reduce the severity of the disease should you get it. The data however now suggests that though the overall risks are not large, the jab carries enough risk that in many cases, it makes no sense to get it. To require it, as many governments and businesses have done, is downright stupid and immoral. To fire nurses and doctors for refusing the shots is beyond stupid or immoral. It is evil.

Worse, these facts were known right from the initial tests, as the last story below shows. In the company’s initial trials they found that 1,223 people died within the first 28 days after taking the Pfizer shot. Such a result in past drug trials would have made impossible the approval of that drug.
» Read more

22 comments

The future factions in space become clearer

9:17 am

Based on two stories yesterday, it appears that the future alliances between nations in space are now beginning to sort themselves out.

First there was the signing ceremony announcement of Columbia becoming the nineteenth nation to sign the Artemis Accords with the U.S. and the third Latin American country to do so.

The Artemis Accords were created by the Trump administration as an international treaty to bypass the restrictions on private property imposed by the Outer Space Treaty. By signing bilateral agreements with as many nations as possible, the U.S. thus creates a strong alliance able to protect those rights in space.

The full list of signatories so far: Australia, Bahrain, Brazil, Canada, Columbia, Israel, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Mexico, New Zealand, Poland, Romania, Singapore, South Korea, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, the Ukraine, and the United States.

In the second story, France and India — both of whom have so far resisted signing the Artemis Accords — announced their own bilateral agreement intended to strengthen their partnership across many fronts, from security to economic development to the Ukraine war. The agreement also included this paragraph on the subject of space:
» Read more

7 comments

The Ukraine War: Reassessing the situation after another month

1:33 pm

The Ukraine War as of April 9, 2022
The Ukraine War as of April 9, 2022. Click for full map.

The Ukraine War as of May 5, 2022
The Ukraine War as of May 5, 2022. Click for full map.

Since my last look at the state of Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine on April 7, 2022, not much as happened, as indicated by the two maps to the right, both simplified versions of maps created by the Institute for the Study of War (ISW).

The red hatched areas are regions Russia captured in 2014. The red areas are regions the Russians have captured in this invasion and now fully control. The pink areas are regions they have occupied but do not fully control. The tan areas the Russians claim to control but the control remains unconfirmed. Blue regions are areas the Ukraine has recaptured. The blue hatched area is where local Ukrainians have had some success resisting Russian occupation.

Russia has now completely shifted its military resources from the north to the eastern parts of the Ukraine. As a result it has had some success firming up its control over the regions it had invaded to the north and east of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions it had grabbed in 2014. Yet, these gains were only in areas Russia had already occupied. In the past month it has almost entirely failed to invade or capture any additional territory.

Meanwhile, the Ukraine has begun to have some success in retaking territory around the city of Kharkiv. It also successfully pushed back an advance Russia attempted to the west of Donetsk. Moreover, despite repeated expectations that the full occupation of the city of Maripol would be completed a month ago, that occupation is still not complete, with resistant forces still fighting heavily in one area and thus tying up Russia forces for far longer than expected.

The May 5th assessment by ISW said this:

Russian forces continued ineffectual offensive operations in southern Kharkiv, Donetsk, and Luhansk Oblasts without securing any significant territorial gains in the past 24 hours. The Pentagon assessed that Russian forces have not been able to make further advances due to their inability to conduct offensive operations far from their ground lines of communication (GLOCs) along highways, as ISW previously assessed, and muddy terrain. … Russian forces are reportedly suffering losses in stalled attacks along the Izyum axis, with the Ukrainian General Staff reporting that elements of the 4th Tank Division and the 106th Airborne Division withdrew to Russia after sustaining heavy losses in the past several days.

Russian forces conducted unsuccessful attacks in Lyman, Severodonetsk, and Popasna, and maintained shelling along the line of contact in Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts. Russian forces also used thermobaric munitions against Ukrainian positions in Lyman and are unsuccessfully attempting to leverage massed artillery fire to break through Ukrainian defenses.

The overall trend seems to favor the Russians. Whether it can gain more territory is unclear, but it seems that except for one area near Kharkiv it is firming up its control on the territories grabbed in early March. The question now remains: Can Russia expand its invasion, or can the Ukraine push back and force the Russians back?

Right now it looks like neither can do either, and the situation shall remain bogged down for the near future.

48 comments
1 … 20 21 22 23 24 … 84