Simplicius has put up a new "urgent" Substack piece two hours ago...
He covers the Belarus attack, as well as updates on how many Russian and PMR forces are actually in Transnistria - it's more than we've been told, although he doesn't cite sources for that.
SITREP 2/26 - Urgent Update
https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/sitrep-226-urgent-update?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
But on top of that—strangely—there was a reported clash in the Volyn region between AFU and Belarusian border guards, reportedly resulting in the death of 1 AFU soldier. Reported by the reputable channel @voenkorkotenok:
Also, the Kyiv media announce the death of a militant of the "Volyn Territorial Defense" on the border with Belarus. The incident took place yesterday morning, but it became known about it only today. @voenkorKotenok
Volyn Terodefense militant killed in skirmish on Ukrainian-Belarusian border According to Ukrainian media, the collision itself took place yesterday at 5 am, but there is no official reaction to this yet.
However, needless to say, this has the stink of deliberate provocation and escalation. Ukraine is not suicidal enough to want Belarus to open up a gigantic new front against them where the AFU would be forced to tie down tens of thousands of new troops. Particularly, not at the ‘trade off’ of damaging ONE Russian plane at some remote airport. Maybe if it was something that had actual consequence and was worth the invasion.
No, the only conceivable reason the AFU would strong-arm Belarus into entering the conflict is if it was part of a well-detailed and coordinated Western intel operation (read: trap) meant to vastly escalate the conflict. The most likely vector of escalation would be to force the entry of Belarusian forces into Ukraine to use that as raison d'être to bring Polish and/or NATO troops into the country to, in some way, assist Ukraine.
I think he's right about that. That, and the proposed attack on Transnistria clearly shows the neocons in the US want to expand the war into a full fledged NATO vs Russia affair on a level higher than the "Western mercenaries" schtick done so far.
Also, the rumors that the Chinese are preparing to send military equipment to Russia may be true:
But now a Chinese military blogger has stated the following:
From the largest storage of reserves of the Chinese army in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (not far from the border with Russia), artillery systems began to be reactivated and brought into combat condition, writes military analyst Zhu Shufang.
Among other things, these are PLZ-05 howitzers with a caliber of 152 mm (an analogue of the Russian Msta-S), as well as Chinese AR1A multiple launch rocket systems (an analogue of the Russian Smerch MLRS). It was here that high-ranking Russian military personnel arrived 8 days ago, the author writes.
There's a lot more - a must read.
