Ukraine daily update January 29, 2025

Snow lions

https://twitter.com/ukrainiansquad/status/1881366866201104827?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w

Now that one is in a Spanish-speaking country in the Caribbean, it’s incredible how similar the words are in Spanish and Swedish – taco, nacho, burrito, avocado, heineken. Then I have discovered that the following vocabulary is enough to navigate the country – “buenas dias”, “si”, “trez cervejas immediamente rapido rapido” and then a “gracias”. Insanely easy to become fluent in this language 👍

Going to and from work with a driver who is supposed to teach me more Spanish (as if it’s needed…) but he is taking English classes himself and only wants to speak English 😲

We have already early in 2024 hit the gong that Ukraine has won the strategic bomb war and stands firm in it but what has changed since November 5th (for no particular reason at all) is that Ukraine is now fighting oil exports, oil depots, and now they have restarted Raff 2.0.

I haven’t kept statistics on arsenals, oil exports, and oil depots, only on refineries.

For me, it’s unclear whether during 2024 it was the drones or the yellow/red cards that were the limitation for the refineries because we had 54 attacks on refineries with individual drones during 2024 and what now seems to have changed is that they are using more drones, achieving better results, and have only just begun. But there has been a long break of high-intensity droning where March – June 2024 was like a wet blanket over the refinery industry with a total of seventeen attacks.

July 2024 – January 2025 has a total of twelve attacks + the last two.

Do you also remember the discussion about Ukraine and RU mutually promising to leave each other’s high-value infrastructure in peace?

Not so much anymore.

The other day it was Ryazan that has now closed its refinery production and 5% of Russian production capacity is gone.

https://twitter.com/bayraktar_1love/status/1882544739171676414?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w

Now it was Stovo, the second largest refinery with 6% refinery capacity that has disappeared (how that adds up…).

So 11% of Russian refinery capacity gone in a week.

Per effort, it’s hundreds of drones and they seem to be down to half a week in intervals now.

And it’s not just refineries that are being fought, they have also targeted another Arsenal (large ammunition depots).

Russia had a total of 12 and previously at least two have been fought, now a third one.

If one were to guess, they choose the ones with the type of ammunition they want to eliminate, maybe robots?

AND, UA strikes against the oil distribution infrastructure by droning away key points.

There is also a lot NOT happening at the fronts –

-RU offensive at the southern front never started.

-the area east of Kupiansk never fell.

-Kursk is holding out.

Yes, Toretsk has fallen and Vesylika Novosilka is a significant loss but RU seems completely unable to exploit the opening they have created for themselves.

RU has crossed the railway south of Pokrovsk and continues westward, which of course is not good either but makes no difference to the total.

Ukraine is exchanging farmland for Russian lives at a devastating pace and it’s clear that RU cannot exploit any tactical breakthroughs at all.

Now that one is a bit sloppy with the posts, it becomes clear how little has actually happened in a week and according to the Russians, they are on the verge of winning.

Stagnant fronts and peering over the trench edge is not it – it’s very mobile combat but RU is unable to exploit openings and UA has no strategic reserve for the west, not equipping it in its immense generosity where we sit on our morally superior hill.

Right now, I suffer from reading Swedish domestic news vs. the Ukraine war – there is bickering about what color Stenegaard’s socks are and that Sweden will crash because of it while our time’s major global conflict hangs in the balance. One understands why Churchill was half-drunk on champagne from morning till night – it’s somewhat incredible how little many care about what is happening around us and what can determine our future. If you were a German in your twenties in 1941, the chance of living your life at all or without PTSD or disability was quite small, not to mention individuals of Jewish descent living in Western Europe in the late 1930s – the likelihood of reaching old age was vanishingly small.

By the way, I have seen some trials/interviews from Israel from the 1980s I think it was, and it was quite clear that time does not heal any wounds at all.

There is a significant difference between participating in a conflict like Afghanistan in the Western coalition or being a country/ethnic group subjected to ethnic cleansing with daily torture-murder-desecration by sexual sadists.

For example, a striking number of survivors from the peace festival in Israel that was attacked on October 7, 2023, have taken their own lives.

I think that the mother who witnessed her five-year-old daughter being raped, tortured, and ultimately murdered by Chechens who forced her to watch probably took her own life as soon as she could.

And this has unfolded over large areas in Ukraine and especially all the prisoners of war/civilian prisoners as well as the 200,000 children, according to the USA, who have been kidnapped. Because no one believes that Russia treats Ukrainian children better than any other prisoners, right?

Early on, I brought up the issue of trafficking and received negative feedback on it and that it was mainly about adoptions – I still don’t believe that for a second and hope they have changed their minds.

Sometimes there are sweeping movements that no country can influence, let alone heads of state or others, and one gets swept along, least of all oneself. Just look at Ukraine.

The absolute best thing is to act before the situation completely spirals out of control, but looking at how uninteresting the Ukraine war is for a large part of the citizens in Sweden, one understands how we could head towards WW2 as we did.

Countries do not act until they are dragged in themselves, perhaps the fact that Finland wants peace and has prepared for war has saved them this time and it is an absolute mystery to me how the Baltics can take three years to start building border fortifications against the barbarians, and not put the population on a war footing already.

Still, it feels good that our government has succeeded as well as we have this time, we have had endless failures behind us and it was high time for some redemption.

The Nordic region has done well and takes this seriously.

Putin must start reading the room

He doesn’t understand that Trump has staked a large portion of his credibility on the war ending so he can feel like our time’s great Churchill, ideally he wants Ukraine to throw in the towel but second best is a mediated peace. Being contrary to Putin and continuing to badmouth Melania won’t work.

Putin is doing what he has always done – trying to intimidate and bully, and now we will see how the US president responds to this.

There are already some signals of strong overreactions, just ask the president of Colombia or Mette in Denmark about how quickly the situation seems to be able to spiral out of control and head off in the most unexpected directions.

There is no shortage of war material – thousands of Abrams are in the warehouses and the USA is already sketching out the next generation of tanks, and there are Bradleys as well, as we have gone through many times.

All major war material manufacturers have the capacity, and if Ukraine receives 300 billion frozen Russian USD, they will have the funds to spend.

For example, the manufacturer of Taurus has stated a couple of times that they can produce large volumes quickly but are not receiving any orders, whatever the reason may be.

After Girkin was arrested, he became irrelevant, but here is a text from him anyway. During 2022 – 2023, it was worth listening to what he wrote. For example, when UA left Lysychansk and no one believed me when I wrote about it, he was one of the sources that helped complete the puzzle.

This was before Deepstatemap and lightning-fast information on Twitter, and more rumors buzzing around that one had to choose whether to act on or not after a round of probability.

https://twitter.com/natalkakyiv/status/1884353491495256341?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w

This is the nightmare that keeps one awake at night (for real) when thinking about war, this and being buried in a ground boil from artillery fire.

https://twitter.com/warmonitorclips/status/1881371802267754547?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w

We have previously discussed the escalation steps and that after North Korean soldiers, Chinese soldiers may be hiding in UA as North Koreans. In any case, there are volunteers on site since before, and here is another one.

Then we had the Special Operations Forces company in Belarus about a year ago, right?

If I were to guess, Chinese Special Operations Forces are already operating in Ukraine, but that is my personal opinion.

https://twitter.com/jayinkyiv/status/1883455018839548123?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w

Trump has apparently fired all advisors/military personnel working on the UA war, and who is appointed next is of high interest and will directly tell us which direction this is heading.

https://twitter.com/warmonitor3/status/1881827313597513838?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w

I will improve with links and seriously address this issue with Bluesky sources instead of Twitter – I have been working intensively for a few weeks now, mapping everything out, and can start slacking off at work again and focus on the Ukraine war. It’s a bit of an art form to slack off in a way that looks like you’re working, but I have refined this over the years and feel like I’ve reached wizard level now 👍

As usual, if you liked the post, feel free to share it on your channels, and if you want to start an interesting discussion, feel free to visit johanno1.se and comment there.

Yesterday, there was a lot of Trump-Biden discussion in the comments for those who like that, but I see my own fault in it all since the post laid a good foundation for it – repentance and improvement.

And finally – do not forget about the Ukraine war, 2025 might be the most important year in our era (sounds nice 😀), and a few hundred thousand soaked soldiers in eastern Ukraine are the ones who will determine this.

Because IF this escalates, country after country will be drawn into something that can best be likened to a self-playing piano that no current head of state can control.