There isn’t one big development today, but a series of smaller but still relevant items to update on to keep things within scope as the overall picture continues to escalate in the war in Ukraine and elsewhere. So, this report will be a bit scattershot as I cover many topics.
The biggest news is that yesterday, May 18th, the Ukrainian new mobilization strictures officially and finally went into effect. This has resulted in a flood of videos showing deserted streets, with claims that men are now in hiding like never before.
The below compilation starts with Poltava, then progresses to other cities:
[see link below for video]
Additionally, Ukrainian truckers even staged a mass protest, blocking roads. It will be not only ‘interesting’ to see where this goes and how successful it is, but in fact this will be one of the critical bellwethers for Ukraine as a whole. We know that the manpower issue is paramount and the entire future of this war rests on how successful—or not—this mobilization will be.
In the coming months, after lowering the draft bar to 25 years, an additional 100 thousand men born in 1998-1999 will be called up to the Armed Forces of Ukraine. During these years, 416,349 boys were born. About half of them are already abroad. Summon the remaining half.
Further, it obviously converges with the end of Zelensky’s legitimacy in only two days hence, which even big Western media co’s like Economist are now beginning to seed into the public consciousness for a reason. This is significant because if the ‘enhanced mobilization’ takes a wrong turn, Zelensky’s lack of legitimacy will present an easy, ready scapegoat, and things can escalate against him very quickly.
When the Ukrainian War started a Ukrainian friend said: ‘I want to see an independent Ukraine but it is not worth fighting for’. ABN
American Buddhist Net 