🇷🇺⚔️🇺🇦 The battle of Pokrovsk became the biggest battle of this war. But it also became one of the largest battles in history in terms of the number of armored vehicles lost.

In the battles near Pokrovsk, Ru losses are close to the number of the entire Western Military District of the Ru Fed as of 2022, which was being prepared for war with NATO. And this is about 60% of the forces with which Russia planned to seize Ukraine in three days in 2022.

In October 2023, Ru defined the offensive on Pokrovsk as the main axis of its offensive campaign. Obviously, Putin is focused on the goal of completely capturing the Donetsk region as the highest priority goal in the coming years. But this offensive led to colossal losses.

During the first few weeks of the offensive, Russian losses were estimated at 13,000 soldiers. In February 2024, Russian losses were estimated at 47,000 soldiers killed and wounded. In the future, the dynamics of battles in this direction did not decrease.

Under this dynamic, Russia's total losses for 13 months of fighting in the Pokrovsky direction amount to about 150,000 soldiers killed and wounded. This is more than Russia's losses in the battles for Bakhmut (100,000).

Only the visually confirmed losses of the Russian army during the 13 months of fighting in the Pokrov region amount to 1,800 units of armor. The real losses are even greater.

Russia lost more tanks at Pokrovsk than any country in Europe has in its army. Or more soldiers than the entire Armed Forces of the United Kingdom.

🔗 Volodymyr Dacenko

🇷🇺🌐 Russia Tests Cutting Off Access to Global Web, and VPNs Can't Get Around It

Russia has reportedly cut some regions of the country off from the rest of the world's internet for a day, effectively siloing them, according to reports from European and Russian news outlets reshared by the US nonprofit Institute for the Study of War (ISW) and Western news outlets.

Russia's communications authority, Roskomnadzor, blocked residents in Dagestan, Chechnya, and Ingushetia, which have majority-Muslim populations, ISW says. The three regions are in southwest Russia near its borders with Georgia and Azerbaijan. People in those areas couldn't access Google, YouTube, Telegram, WhatsApp, or other foreign websites or apps—even if they used VPNs, according to a local Russian news site.

Russian digital rights NGO Roskomsvoboda told TechRadar that most VPNs didn't work during the shutdown, but some apparently did. It's unclear which ones or how many actually worked, though. Russia has been increasingly blocking VPNs more broadly, and Apple has helped the country's censorship efforts by taking down VPN apps on its Russian App Store. At least 197 VPNs are currently blocked in Russia, according to Russian news agency Interfax.

https://www.pcmag.com/news/russia-tests-cutting-off-access-to-global-web-and-vpns-cant-get-around

🇷🇺🇺🇦A powerful fortified area was built for the Ukrainian Armed Forces near Pokrovsk, but no soldiers were sent there, and the Russians took it without a fight.

This was reported by journalist Yuri Butusov.

"They built a key, finally good fortified area near Pokrovsk, for several tens of millions of hryvnia, but they did not have time to send our soldiers there due to certain inadequate management decisions by the command," Butusov said.

"Now, the key, tactically speaking, fortified area has already been captured by the enemy, without a fight. He entered there before the military command sent even one person there. As a result, tens of millions have been spent, and our command has given this entire fortified area to the Russian troops," he added.

SpaceX submits letter to Judge Treviño asking to officially incorporate Starbase, Texas, as its own city.

📎 Jessica Kirsh

📝 Elon Musk on X:

"SpaceX HQ will now officially be in the city of Starbase, Texas!"