It appears the Special Military Operation is about to enter a new phase, if the recent activity in the region of Odessa means what one would reasonably assume it to mean:
The biggest story the past week has been Russia’s strikes on the Odessa and Nikolayev region. These have targeted both energy grid infrastructure as well as—most surprisingly—the transport and rail infrastructure, in what appears to be an attempt to cut Odessa off from logistics from the west.
Panic in the Odessa region after the attacks on the bridge over the Dniester near the village of Mayaki. The attacks on the bridge and the bridge in Zatoka have been ongoing for 9 days in a row. The south of the region may be cut off from the last functioning ports, through which gasoline is supplied to the central part of Ukraine and the Odessa region. Local entrepreneurs are already offering to transport people to the other side for 10,000 hryvnias. Panic is spreading on both sides of the bridge, with people buying up fuel and food, and long queues at gas stations in Odessa. Other sources report that the “fever” will last for 1-2 weeks, until logistics are reorganized through Moldova and Romania. By that time, pontoon crossings may appear in Mayaki.
As for the swings and roundabouts, these sorts of small advances and retreats such as Simplicius describes at Kupyansk mean absolutely nothing beyond PR for the media. If the media covered the Paul-Joshua fight the same way they cover the NATO-Russian war, they’d be breathlessly announcing that Paul had turned everything around and was about to knock out Joshua every time he got a punch in.
In war, as in boxing, no one goes unscathed. And the only reason the media believes otherwise is that it still thinks that turkey shoots in the desert with air supremacy are the definition of modern war, and nothing could be further from the truth in the Drone Age.
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