Unlike Stefan, Senior Defense Correspondent at the Kyiv Post, I have no tactical military experience or expertise whatsoever. None. Zero. That’s why I rely on him and Illia, Defense and Security Reporter at the Kyiv Independent, for critical, up-to-date information about developments on the battlefield in Donbas.
Yesterday, Stefan provided a run-down of developments here, and Illia was nice enough to share this curvy graphic illustrating, er, total confusion with his 1.2 million Twitter friends.
TikTok-ers serving in the Armed Forces of Ukraine also pitched in.
Mapping the mess is popular for war scholars, but bad for one’s vision.
Information about military losses and gains is, at best, indicative, and in both directions, depending on what you’re looking at. John from Finland drew the map below to illustrate just how flat as pancake the area being fought over is.
Most people go to bed with one opinion of the situation and wake up with a completely different one. During the night, something will happen that seemed absolutely unbelievable. The surprise development may be so shocking that it instantly nullifies all the benefits of what they thought nine hours earlier.
The gist of this post is no one knows what the fuck is actually happening in Donbas, except maybe for Stefan and Illia and the kids wearing cammies posting video clips to TikTok.