- Ukrainian forces took out more than 100 Russian soldiers with an ATACMS missile, per OSINT analysts.
- Four ATACMS were used to target the group, one analyst said.
- The soldiers would have been out of reach of Ukraine’s shorter-range ATACMS missiles.
A Ukrainian ATACMS long-range missile strike killed more than 100 Russian soldiers in an occupied region 50 miles from the front line, according to OSINT and military analysts.
Ukrainian forces targeted a Russian military training area some 50 miles behind the front line in the occupied Luhansk Oblast in eastern Ukraine, per an assessment by The Institute for the Study of War.
According to two aerial geolocated videos posted on Wednesday by X user Osinttechnical, an account affiliated with the Centre for Naval Analyses, Ukraine appeared to strike the training area with three US-supplied M39 ATACMS tactical ballistic missiles.
Broker a ceasefire, to start, as that ends the immediate loss of life. Begin negotiations for a permanent peace settlement. Establish terms for repatriating land to displaced refugees and compensation for death and destruction of property.
Then hold elections in Ukraine to establish a new postwar government that can continue the peace process.
The only way to prevent Russia from furthering its march into Ukraine is to establish a ceasefire.
Ukrainians had that chance in 2022 and they choose counteroffensive. It failed and they lost territory.
In 2023, they tried again and failed, and lost more territory.
Now Kyiv is under regular bombardment from fortified Russian positions in the North and the entire Donetsk line is under unsustainable pressure.
Either Europe enters the war to bail out Ukraine, Russia accepts a ceasefire and begins a peace settlement, or you’re looking at another big line collapse and retreat, with commensurate territory loss all through the East and South.
Ukraine is willing to end the war today, unfortunately Russia actively rejects returning Ukrainian lands. Until Russia is prepared to accept peace, the only path forward is to destroy Russia’s ability to wage war.
??? In 2022, Ukraine pushed the invader away from Kiev, out of Kharkiv, and out of Kherson. Ukraine holds significantly more of their own land today than they did before their counteroffensives in 2022. The entirety of the green shaded area is land Russia once occupied that Ukraine liberated.
All the more reason to call for a cease-fire and prevent them from taking any more.
There is no end game for Ukraine that has them securing Vladivostok. They’ll be lucky if they can put boots back into Donetsk.
While giving up Khereon in the process.
They contest more land, thanks to longer range munitions.
And they never succeeded in ending bombardment of Kyiv or Western infrastructure. The Ukrainians power grid is poised to collapse and force millions more to flee westward.
There is no permanent peace achievable now. Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014 and there was 8 years of peace until they attacked again. They used the peace to re-arm.
The actual solution is escalating sanctions slowly, like a python, to demonstrate to the Russian people that Putin is not in control. A sustained quagmire and waning domestic support is a recipe for Russia pulling out of Ukraine on its own.
It’s been done many times: Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan (twice!), Iraq. And those are just the ones that involved the US. Authoritarian regimes have to deal with domestic support too. They don’t just magically have unlimited resources to stay in power, especially when their army is outside the country.