Global SITREP A7-22: Ready, Set and Hooks!

 

Is this man Gog of Magog?

17 February 2022: The current warfighting doctrine of the Russian Federation, if not the whole of the Union State (Russia and Belarus), employs the simultaneous use of Information Warfare (INFOWAR), Psychological Warfare (PSYOPS). Cyber Attacks (CYBERWAR). These types of hybrid warfare are at some predetermined point combined with conventional kinetic warfighting. 

As of the early hours today Russian Federation forces conventional warfighting against Ukraine in the southeastern oblasts (provinces) of Luhansk and Donetsk began on a scale not seen since the original invasion of Ukrainian territory in 2014. The Ukrainian military command, referred to as the Joint Forces HQ published a list of attacks that erupted along the entire front lines in eastern Ukraine.

82mm mortars struck Ukrainian Army positions near the towns of Stanytsia Luhanska and Novozvanivka. UAV dropped VOG-17 and VOG-25 grenades at Lobacheve and Vodiane, which was followed by 120mm mortar strikes. 122mm artillery opened up against Prycheplivka; Luhanske, Marinka, Syze and Katerynivka were all hit by antitank and machine gun fire. 

There are no reports of Ukrainian military casualties from the Joint Forces HQ as of 0700 EST this morning, nor have Ukrainian defenders taken the bait to return fire on the Russian forces which would almost certainly trigger a full-scale invasion of Ukraine by the Union State forces. Below is an image of a pontoon bridge erected in the past 24 hours over the Pripyat River in Belarus that Russian T72B3 main battle tanks would use to establish an invasion route through Chernobyl to Kyiv.

Satellite image of new Russian pontoon tank bridge
4 miles north of the Belarus-Ukraine border.

New information also cites the forward movement of several Russian battlegroups up to the Ukrainian border and not away from the border per Russian INFOWAR and PSYOPS. In recent days massive Russian CYBERWAR attacks were launched against Ukrainian military servers and at least two Ukrainian banks in Kyiv.  Suffice it to say that just as occurred in Georgia fourteen years ago, "it's on" in Ukraine today. Watching.

Breaking News Alert 03-17

Fatah al-Sham and Islamic State jihadists not part of the current Syrian ceasefire

🔺 30 January 2017:  This weekend the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a group monitoring the war in Syria, reported that Fatah al-Sham (Al Qaeda) has merged into a common jihadist army with four other jihadist factions. These jihadists groups are now referring to themselves as the Levant Liberation Body (LLB). The LLB are of the Sunni Wahhabi ideology and Islamic State are of the Sunni Salafi ideology; both were excluded from the recent peace negotiations brokered by Russia and Turkey in Astana, Kazakhstan.

The LLB have recently cut off the majority of the Wadi Barada river valley water supply to the city of Damascus and its estimated 5.5 million inhabitants. One of the primary sources here is the Ein al-Fijeh natural spring and pumping station which was cut due to damage caused by fighting despite the alleged ceasefire. As if the situation in western Syria and Damascus was not bad enough, an acute water shortage will only create a more desperate situation for the Al-Assad government and rebel jihadists alike.