We have no electricity, no water, no mobile connection, no internet connection, we can hear shelling, but we have no Russians – that’s why we are so happy. I was concerned, after the route at Kharkiv and the potential traps at Kherson, they fortunately did not eventuate.

President Zelensky visited the city, now named Time Person of the Year, this is one selection that has the support of just about everyone – apart from a former 2007 winner. This was a bold move, after months of occupation under a regime that has no qualms to rape, murder and torture the people in occupied regions.

Yet the Time Person of the Year does not carry that much weight since Putin himself got that award in 2007 for returning Russia to the table of world power, even if it came at a cost of democratic principles. Having Adolf Hitler (1938) and Joseph Stalin (1939) and in (1942) as winners takes the shine off of the award. Then there is Wallis Simpson (1936) and Harry Truman (1945), they might be a little controversial as winners Then there was Nixon (1971) in what would be considered a tad premature.

Zelensky is a genuine leader, multiple assassination attempts on his life, his refusal to flee the city, even as Russian troops neared the outskirts of Kyiv have enhanced his reputation. There has been reportedly twelve assassination attempts on his life during the Russian invasion, yet Zelensky refused to leave.

Without Zelensky’s bold leadership, the Ukrainian resistance may have folded, he has motivated the population, garnered international support and most importantly secured advanced western weapons and logistical support. The Ukrainian resistance has been fierce, they have used their limited resources to maximum effect. Even in occupied territory, the Ukrainian resistance has been determined, they provide coordinates for counter-attacks and missile strikes.

It is up to the people of the nation to select their government and their leaders. From an outsider’s perspective, why would you elect the son of a brutal dictator? The Marcos family has not returned the stolen funds from the 1960s to 1980s. They estimate $10 billion [potentially more] was embezzled out of the country and stashed in Swiss bank accounts – and it is still there.

When Ferdinand and Imelda fled to Hawaii with Bongbong [Ferdinand Junior], Imee and Irene, the country was in disarray, years of martial law had left over 3200 dead, 77,000+ incarcerations. There was over 35,000 documented cases of torture, countless women raped and the country destined to another generation of poverty according to Amensty International. Whilst South East Asia is pulling itself out of extreme poverty, the Philippines has been left behind, the country still has not recovered.

The political dynasty was thought to have started when Mariano was elected as a congressman to the House of Representatives in 1925. They were never a clean family, Mariano lost his seat in 1935 and the winner was assassinated on his back porch later that night, after a mock funeral parade marched past his house.

Mariano himself was assassinated in 1945, the family claim it was by the Japanese, but witnesses claim it was by Philippine guerillas after he was tried as a Japanese collaborator and dismembered with carabaos. His son, Ferdinand served in his father’s former position firstly in congress and later in the senate before becoming President in 1965.

Despite the constitution allowing two four year terms, Marcos enacted martial law in 1972 and stayed in power until forced to flee in 1986 after the assassination of Ninoy Aquino. Living in exile in Hawaii until Ferdinand’s death in 1991, Corazon Aquino allowed family members to return to the Philippines, supposedly to stand trial for corruption.

This was a failure, Imelda then unsuccessfully ran for president in 1992 before being elected to congress for the seat of Leyte. Imelda had another run for the presidency in 1998 before withdrawing and supporting eventual winner, Joseph Estrada. Imelda maintained the congressional position for three terms.

Ferdinand Junior was a senator from 2010 – 2016, unsuccessfully run for Vice President to Rodrigo Duterte, losing to Leni Roberto. I recall there was discussion of legal action, but I believe he decided to not follow up, instead waiting for his opportunity at the end of the Duterte presidency.

So, the Marcos family and all their cronies embedded in the government and government agencies still have major influence at all levels of government. From what I read on social media, Bongbong is widely supported, he did win the presidential election in a landslide, the family deny any wrongdoing and are seeking to redeem the family name. There is impunity for this family whilst they remain in government, let’s see what they do to retain power.

I love reading the pro-Putin comments online with his legion of online lackeys claiming to destroy all the US supplied Himar rocket systems. We see these pop up in online forums all the time, if you disagree with them, you just follow western media like sheep – yeah right.

Russian sources have claimed to have destroyed more Himar systems than has been supplied to Ukraine, well, we all know Russian reporting of this war [sorry, special military operation] is notoriously imprecise. Much like a Russian missile system actually, but could there actually be some truth to the Russian Ministry of Defence claims?

The Russian military is almost expert at destroying decoy Ukraine Himar sites, they don’t move, don’t shoot back and are easily spotted by Russian drones. Then the coordinates are forwarded to Russian Black Sea forces to expend naval long-range cruise missiles on decoy [sometimes constructed from wood] sites. The real Himar launchers have launched their precision missiles and long since relocated to hit Russian targets elsewhere.

Watching YouTube videos of the Russian war in Ukraine, I try to view two sides of every story. The 10 day special military operation is clearly a failure from the perspective that the Russian invaders have failed to meet their objectives. Ok, so these objectives are constantly moving with the countless failures, but we all know what they tried on, and it failed.

So now there has been a partial mobilisation, this is leading to further Russian failures. Untrained conscripts are forced to the front lines to be used as cannon fodder. These poorly trained, under-resourced, undisciplined and shockingly bad mobiks have no command leadership and are sent to the front lines to die. They might have an overwhelming numerical advantage over the Ukrainian defenders, but their lack of fighting ability and grit quickly erodes this advantage.

What I see on videos released is Russian mothers, wives and girlfriends pleading to the Russian hierarchy to better train, equip and support their men. Make no mistake, they are not questioning the invasion of Ukraine, they are demanding better conditions [and pay] for their men. They offer no regrets for the suffering of the Ukrainian people, they still use derogatory terms for Ukrainians showing no remorse whatsoever.

Well, sending these poorly trained men to the front lines to try to kill Ukrainian soldiers fighting for freedom, they are failing miserably and the more Russians forced into the meat grinder slowly undermines the future capacity of Russia. It is clear that these women support the invasion of Ukraine, they view Ukrainians as unequal to them and they must pay the price of this arrogance with their lives. Every Ukrainian life lost defending their freedom is a tragedy, the Russian invaders are labelled orcs, their losses are nowhere near as tragic.

I am asking myself, why is the Wagner Group pouring so many resources into trying to take the town of Bakhmut. From a military perspective, there does not seem to be a great military objective here so many are speculating why Russia is pushing so hard here – I am wondering too.

The first possibility is the Wagner Group is pushing their own agenda here, they are being paid by the Russian government to meet objectives. They are pushing an internal agenda that the Russian military fails to meet objectives, but the Wagner Group is successful. This is very much an internal power play, the Wagner Group seeks more lucrative government contracts and is attempting to build their reputation.

There is discussion that Russians are waking up to the fact that this war is not going well for Russia as the second possibility. This may lead to the end of Putin himself, this military failure may set off a power struggle in the Kremlin. The Russians historically have little tolerance of military failure, this leads to upheaval and the leadership is replaced. It is precisely this leadership failure that led the country into this war, during covid, Putin was isolated during the covid pandemic due to his inner circle falling ill and he may have become obsessed with the goal and NATO in general.

Thirdly, Yevgeny Prigozhin is well connected to Putin himself, he was the personal chef to Putin after becoming a loyal ally with Putin becoming a regular diner at his restaurants in St Petersburg. Prigozhin may be setting the Wagner Group up for alliance to the new regime should Putin be displaced as President. This collection of rag tag low-level mercenaries are not top end talent from the Russian military, they recruit from prison allowing sentences to be waived should they survive. This requires high-level contacts, this really does not reflect well on Russian government processes.

Putin has been a Presidential dictator of Russia since 2012, after being Prime Minister from 2008 – 2012. The next possibility is that Prigozhin is seeing weakness in Putin and he feels Putin might not survive as President. This may be the opportunity for Prigozhin to use this probable upheaval to push his case to become the next President. There has been speculation that Putin is preparing a residence in exile in South America should he be deposed as President.

There is speculation that Russia is trying to get within artillery striking range of two Ukrainian field HQ as the fifth possibility. Should they gain control of Bakhmut, they can position their artillery on the outskirts of Bakhmut and pound these positions. However, this does not discount the fact that Russia could just hit these areas with missile strikes. This would tend to indicate these field HQs are heavily defended from missile strikes and the Russians are not confident that they are capable of hitting these targets with their missiles.

Sixth, Russia is seeking to drag Ukraine into a quagmire to tie up and destroy resources, this is intended to weaken the Ukrainian resolve. Putin’s targeting of Ukrainian infrastructure is a further attempt to break their resolve. Russia may be seeking to negotiate a ceasefire, they are attempting to freeze them out, but this doesn’t appear to be working either. The Ukrainian people are steadfast, they want Russia out, they are not willing to negotiate from a weak position and they are certainly not willing to negotiate their sovereignty.

Lastly, this may be an old plan that has not been updated prior to Russia losing Kharkiv. The Wagner Group is being paid, or may have already been paid to take Bakhmut already. There has been some discussion that the Russian people have already been told that they have won this battle, the objective is now just to appease a home audience. Possibly Putin’s hold on power is not as strong as we think it is, maybe he is fragile

This then begs the question, why is Ukraine pouring so many resources into this town? Ukraine themselves may be trying to bog down Russian troops [Wagner Group] and resources, possibly. Ukraine will defend this area. Ukraine is not giving an inch, they are defending hard but taking losses too. My only concern is they are being dragged into a trap. There is a possibility Russia will be ground down in the very offensive they launched.

The Ukrainian forces have a sense of humour, this has been declassified and we see what they did for their Christmas and New Year holidays. According to reports, the Himars targeted Russian munitions stores. We are also aware that the vocational school in Makiivka used as barracks for Russian soldiers were also hit with Himars with even Russia admitting multiple deaths. 

Despite Russian claims that they have destroyed more Himars than has been delivered, there is some truth here as the Russian forces have blown up plenty of Himars decoys – this is not true. This is the long-range weapon that the Ukrainian forces rely on, the Ukrainians are so brazen with their most important weapon that they dress it up and send some presents off to the Russian invaders and film the action.

What is interesting is Ukraine made it look like they were attacking Kherson so Russia pulled troops and equipment out to defend Kherson leaving Kharkiv exposed and Ukraine launched those now infamous thunder runs to penetrate deep behind Russian lines. This is like a scene out of Mad Max in the post apocalyptic world, this is pretty wild, Ukraine is causing some major disruption to Russia.

Now just weeks later, they are going after Kherson too, so where did all that Russian defensive structure go? Russia planned poorly for the invasion of Ukraine, they thought this was 2014 again when they marched in pretty much unopposed to Crimea. The Obama administration, NATO and the rest of the world stood by, the messaging to Putin was clear.

The four years of the chaotic Trump administration was equally as indecisive, Trump undercut NATO and sent subliminal messages to Putin that NATO was indecisive, wracked with infighting and inconsequential. With US and NATO assistance, Ukrainian troops received NATO training, adapted NATO doctrine and tactics. The US and NATO were initially reluctant to supply modern weapons to Ukraine as it was thought they would soon collapse and modern weaponry would be captured.

Oh, how wrong everyone was. Ukraine put up an amazing fight, they defeated the Russian advance on Kyiv harassing the Russian forces back. Ukraine began winning on the battlefield with long range artillery and mobile rocket launchers. Russia held a long defensive line and repelled Russian advances around Kharkiv, they spread misinformation and prepared to attack Kherson. Russia was stretched and withdrew troops from Kharkiv to defend Kherson.

That’s when Ukrainian thunder runs exploded through Russian defensives in the east. In what looked like Mad Max intrusions, mobile Ukrainian troops hit multiple points of the front lines in small groupings looking for weakness and holes in the Russian defensives. Then they pulled back and looked for other areas of weakness, these were rapid incursions designed to cause panic. These guys are brave, recklessly so. In what was a bold move aided by western intelligence, small patrols of around 6 men crashed through the front lines causing havoc.

Once these thunder runs had commenced, further patrol followed them in and hit Russian defenders from behind. There was havoc as the Russian officers had already departed, there was panic as these men knew they had been left to die. At this point, their best option was to surrender as Russian prisoners were being treated well. The Russians needed to get out of there, they dropped their weapons and ran, they stole bicycles, vehicles and jumped on their vehicles and scattered.

The Russians left so quickly they left huge stockpiles of weapons, fighting vehicles, armour and intelligence infrastructure and materials. It soon became clear how poorly organised these defences were and how bad morale was. The mass surrender of Russian troops had the potential to derail the fast moving Ukrainian forces, they needed to stop, process and hold Russian POWs. Ironically, Russia is now the largest supplier of weapons to Ukraine, this offensive move was spectacular, Ukraine achieved far more than what I am guessing was the most optimistic predictions- Slava Ukraine.

I viewed an interview by Lieutenant Ilia Samoilenko of the Azov Regiment when they were held up in the Mariupol Steel Works in May 2022. He was interviewed by Sky News, it was looking very grim, they were not sure if they were going to survive, it was looking less than likely.

During the siege, Samoilenko became the spokesman for the Azov Regiment, taking interviews from deep within the steelworks. Samoilenko is highly educated studying history at Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv. Lieutenant Samoilenko is well spoken, he firstly criticised politicians for not providing the regiment with enough weaponry and then went on to ask the global community for assistance – it worked.

Samoilenko joined the Azov Regiment in 2015 after the Russian invasion of Crimea and the ongoing insurgency in the Donbas region. Samoilenko lost his left arm and right eye when munitions exploded in his hand when he was on a mission in the eastern Donbas in 2018. Samoilenko rehabilitated himself and rejoined his comrades in the Azov Regiment as his goal to expel the Russian invaders from Ukraine had not yet been achieved.

Samoilenko’s statement during the siege of “we are taking losses, everyday might be our last.” He then followed up “as for now, the result of this might be our imminent death or capture by the enemy which also means death for us and the consequences of this might be very catastrophic for the Ukrainian defence and the Ukrainian state.”

Lieutenant Samoilenko also explained “Our lives mean nothing, but our fight means everything” and he did not see surrender as a realistic option. Regardless, he stated that they had not been ordered to surrender and they would not break orders. Lieutenant Samoilenko was forthright when he stated that they witnessed Russian war crimes and they would not be kept alive as these witnesses. Ultimately, they were ordered to surrender on May 16 by their commanders after a deal of sorts was reached.

I had been trying to follow Lieutenant Samoilenko after that surrender and evacuation, they were bused to the Olenivka detention centre in Donetsk, a region under control by the Russian backed separatists. I could not find any information on him or the regiment and was concerned, I had grave concerns he and his comrades would just disappear. They were then transferred to an undisclosed location in Russia where some are still imprisoned,

When the Olenivka detention centre housing Ukrainian prisoners of war were held including members of the Azov Regiment, I was pretty sure Russia was looking for a way of making the hated Azov Regiment disappear. There were 50 deaths from that explosion, naturally the Russian attempted to blame the explosion on a Himar missile strike claiming that the Ukrainian government was trying to kill their own soldiers.

The Russians claimed the Ukrainian government was trying to get rid of these fighters despite being national heroes. The international community did not believe these claims Samoilenko was then held for 120 days in solitary confinement, there have been claims the the Azov Regiment soldiers had been tortured by their Russian captors, currently Samoilenko is not making these claims. Lieutenant Samoilenko was released from captivity during a prisoner swap in September 2022 and reunited with his family. There are still members of the Azov Regiment imprisoned in undisclosed locations in Russia.

I have written previously about the Kadyrov TicTok troops supporting the Russian invasion of Ukraine and I have been less than complimentary of their motives to serve the Putin regime. Chechnya has twice fought the Russians in recent history for independence from Russia and failed on both occasions. Despite a spirited uprising, their fight was eventually snuffed out by superior Russian numbers and firepower.

I am highly supportive of the Chechen fighters battling for the liberation of Ukraine. They share a common interest in defeating a brutal regime. Could this war lead to the break-up of the Russian Federation in a similar way the Soviet Union disintegrated in 1991, this is entirely feasible. When this Ukraine conflict has been won, I am hoping these battle hardened troops return to Chechnya to fight for independence from Russia.

Already the Russian sphere of influence is declining, the neighbouring countries show disdain to President Putin, the fear of Russian military action is reducing. Previously the regional power, the Ukrainians have shown the world that they will fight the Russian war machine, they are not merely holding out, they intend to eject every last Russian from Ukrainian territory.

This provides an opportunity for Chechnya, with Russian forces bogged down in this Ukrainian quagmire, they have neither the physical resources or manpower to crush another uprising from Chechnya. Whilst the Putin installed puppet in Ramzan Kadyrov stays at home to defend the Kremlin’s interests, losses of Chechen TicTok troops in Crimea after being hit with a Himars missile and major losses of Wagner Group troops in Bakhmut place greater strain on the TicTok troops.

With Russia engaged in a rout in Ukraine, the opportunity will again resurface where Chechnya can challenge Russian military power. First, Kadyrov has to be defeated, his hold on power in Chechnya is absolute and this is the problem. Whilst he is running around shirtless making mind-numbing propaganda videos, if the TicTok troops losses mount, then maybe an uprising can take hold.

The surrounding central Asian countries will soon be able to break free from Russian influences, what Ukraine has done is show Russia can be defeated. With Russia rapidly losing power and influence in Ukraine, resources are stretched, the sanctions are beginning to really bite. Hopefully Western nations can impose a stronger financial burden on Russia further damaging their economy and hampering their ability to wage military operations against their neighbours providing the opportunity for Russian neighbours to act and secure their security.

I watched the Volodymyr Zelensky address to the US House of Representatives just before Christmas, it was inspirational. Zelensky refused to flee Ukraine at the start of the Russian invasion. His now famous line of “I want ammunition, not a ride” reverberates strongly now.

So why did Zelensky leave Ukraine now? As Ukrainian President Zelensky needs to garner international support for Ukraine, there were some concerns regarding wavering US support. There was genuine concern that if the Republicans gained control of the House during the midterms the US would be forced to downgrade or even withdraw support for Ukraine. On first appearances, it looks like Zelensky has solidified united support from both sides of politics – this was required.

Just days before, Zelensky was at the front lines in Bakhmut, Zelensky presented a signed Ukrainian flag from the front lines with messages to the US Congress by the soldiers at the front line battling the Russian invaders. I struggle to believe that a terrorist nation can just invade a sovereign nation and the world fails to act. Yet that is what the Republican Party wanted to do; fortunately, they were embarrassed at the midterms and their control of the House evaporated. 

Walking into the House Zelensky received a standing ovation, that is a given, but the power and length of that standing ovation sent a clear message, Zelensky has earned united support. Ok, so what was offered? For the next year, Ukraine will receive $1.8 billion USD of military aid, this is not charity though. This is an investment in democracy, this stand against tyranny will ensure peace in Europe for a generation. I fully believe Ukraine will defeat Russia, in the beginning of this conflict I just hoped they could hold out, now I feel they will be victorious.