The Ukrainian “offensive” went about as well as I predicted; after a month of hard work and losing a big percentage of their men and equipment, they are still in the minefield zone in front of the first Russian defensive line, which they haven’t even reached.

Also, there is a NATO summit in Vilnius July 11-12, and Ukraine is acting as if it desperately needs to show some progress before then, because they have probably been told that if they don’t demonstrate the ability to take back “their” territory by then, they will be faced with the very real possibility of having to negotiate a settlement with Russia whereby they would have to cede territory in exchange for survival.

As a result, they have been preparing the public for an attack on the Zaporozhye NPP, which of course they will blame on the Russians, and they are making up stories about having destroyed all kinds of Russian equipment (which is very easy to fake by just taking pictures of their own destroyed stuff or just making stuff up like they usually do) .

The Russians, on the other hand, had very strange developments with Wagner, which is still too weird for me to make sense of; the obvious explanation is that Prigozhin got greedy and lost, but it is still possible that it was all a ruse of some kind I don’t understand. Also, the weather is now ideal for the Russians to go in with full force.

Essentially, heads up.