STRAIT OF GIBRALTAR (Oct. 28, 2023) The Dwight D. Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group transits the Strait of Gibraltar, Oct. 28, 2023. The Dwight D. Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group is on a scheduled deployment to provide the national command authority flexible, tailorable, warfighting capability to maintain maritime stability and to ensure access, deter aggression and defend U.S., allied and partner interests. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Merissa Daley)
Naval News: IKE Carrier Strike Group Enters the Mediterranean Sea
The Dwight D. Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group (IKECSG) transited the Strait of Gibraltar on October 28.
US Navy press release
As a part of the U.S. Navy’s globally-deployed forces, IKECSG will join the Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group in support of the defense of Israel and to deter aggression throughout the region.
By direction of the Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III, IKECSG will transit to U.S. Central Command to demonstrate its readiness to flex to any contingency. IKECSG remains committed to ensuring the security of allies and partners.
Read more ....
Update: Eisenhower carrier strike group enters the Mediterranean (Navy Times).
WNU Editor: This is where the US Navy's big ships are currently located (see image below). For a complete breakdown of US Navy deployments .... USNI News Fleet and Marine Tracker: Oct. 30, 2023.
once again from the west and Ukrainian sources.
ReplyDeleteAs Strana headlines (machine translation):
Ukraine is losing the war with the Russian Federation due to the inadequate perception of the situation by society — commander of the Armed Forces of Ukraine - Strana.news - Oct. 30, 2023
Strategically, Ukraine is losing the war because of the inadequate perception of the situation by society.
This opinion was expressed by the commander of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Dmitry Kukharchuk in an interview with Channel Five.
He claims that at the beginning of the war, all Ukrainians were ready to defend the country, there were many volunteers. But after the withdrawal of Russian troops from Kiev, the situation changed.
"Immediately after that, I noticed that there were theses in the media that we are fighting with homeless people, that the Russian army does not know how to fight, that in principle victory will be in a week or two, a maximum of a month. That first in the spring, then in the summer, then in the autumn, then in the winter, without specifying which winter, we will go to the Crimea. That the victory is basically victorious. So people were put in a warm bathroom. We have broken down the vision of reality. But it didn't happen in Russia. They began to realize that the war was not going to be easy for them. They realized that they would have to fight for a long time, " Kukharchuk believes.
He also says that the Russians are "getting stronger" every day, and if Ukraine really fought the "degenerates", it would have defeated them long ago.
"That's why we're losing. They have these processes going on, and their public readiness is much higher than that of our society. And when they talk about a nuclear bomb, a war of all against all, for some reason it seems to me that they are ready for these processes, " the battalion commander added.
Zelenski still hasn't. He won't concede:
The cold will also make military advances more difficult, locking down the front lines at least until the spring. But Zelensky has refused to accept that. “Freezing the war, to me, means losing it,” he says. Before the winter sets in, his aides warned me to expect major changes in their military strategy and a major shake-up in the President’s team. At least one minister would need to be fired, along with a senior general in charge of the counteroffensive, they said, to ensure accountability for Ukraine’s slow progress at the front. “We’re not moving forward,” says one of Zelensky’s close aides. Some front-line commanders, he continues, have begun refusing orders to advance, even when they came directly from the office of the President. “They just want to sit in the trenches and hold the line,” he says. “But we can’t win a war that way.”
When I raised these claims with a senior military officer, he said that some commanders have little choice in second-guessing orders from the top. At one point in early October, he said, the political leadership in Kyiv demanded an operation to “retake” the city of Horlivka, a strategic outpost in eastern Ukraine that the Russians have held and fiercely defended for nearly a decade. The answer came back in the form of a question: With what? “They don’t have the men or the weapons,” says the officer. “Where are the weapons? Where is the artillery? Where are the new recruits?”
In some branches of the military, the shortage of personnel has become even more dire than the deficit in arms and ammunition. One of Zelensky’s close aides tells me that even if the U.S. and its allies come through with all the weapons they have pledged, “we don’t have the men to use them.”
It has eroded the ranks of Ukraine’s armed forces so badly that draft offices have been forced to call up ever older personnel, raising the average age of a soldier in Ukraine to around 43 years. “They’re grown men now, and they aren’t that healthy to begin with,” says the close aide to Zelensky. “This is Ukraine. Not Scandinavia.”
Note the Reagan has moved out and heading towards the Indian Ocean. The Vinson is behind them. Diego Garcia must be real busy by now,
ReplyDeleteIt's doing war games with Japan in sth China Sea..nothing to see here
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