I’m a Pelvic Floor Therapist—Here’s My Advice for Staying Active When You Have Bladder Issues
Yes, you can strengthen that pelvic floor.
Kaitlin Vogel – July 25, 2022
While it’s not the most comfortable topic to discuss, bladder issues are a common health concern, particularly among women. Bladder control problems can be the result of a weak pelvic floor, which can occur for a variety of reasons: Pregnancy, childbirth, obesity and even heavy lifting in some cases.
“In the past, with any sort of bladder issue, the blanket statement was just to ‘do Kegels,’ a pelvic floor contraction to learn how to strengthen those muscles. But not everyone benefits from them, because the pelvic floor isn’t always weak when you have symptoms—it can be hypertonic or not coordinating well with other muscles,” says Dr. Kelley Koontz, PT, DPT.
“Your pelvic floor is on a team and it works with deep back muscles, deep abdominal muscles, hip muscles and the diaphragm. If something is going on with the entire team, it will likely affect your pelvic floor.”
How to Stay Active When You Have Bladder Issues
“It can be common, but not actually normal to have bladder leaking with exercising, especially if you had kids,” Dr. Koontz explains. “This is a sign of pelvic floor dysfunction and is something you don’t have to live with. It has been found that nearly half of women with urinary incontinence stop or modify their exercise due to their symptoms.”
Bladder leaking during exercise can also happen for those who have never had kids. CrossFit athletes, runners and power-lifters can all struggle with this same issue, whether they have had kids or not.
The first step is to first find out what is causing your symptoms. Is it weakness of the pelvic floor? Is it tightness of the pelvic floor? Is it because of improper bracing mechanics with lifting? Is it because of other weak or overactive muscles around the pelvis? Do you have scar tissue from either a c-section or vaginal birth that is affecting your muscle activation?
All these and more can be a cause for bladder leaking, and the answer is not always doing Kegels, says Dr. Koontz. Meeting with a pelvic health physical therapist is valuable in finding the “why” of your leaking.
Tips For a Healthy and Strong Pelvic Floor
Don’t hold it!
This can cause many different urinary health issues.
“When you hold urine, the bladder muscle thickens and cannot contract and squeeze all the pee out, which can lead to UTIs, which can weaken the pelvic floor muscles. When you go upon feeling an urge, you allow the pelvic floor muscles to lengthen and contract which keep them strong and working efficiently,” says Quiara Smith, MOT, OTR/L, Holistic and Integrative Pediatric Pelvic Health Occupational Therapist.
Be mindful of your breathing
Your breath is essential when you exercise because the pelvic floor works with your diaphragm.
“The pelvic floor moves up (contracting the muscles) when you exhale, and then it moves down (or relaxes/lengthens) with you inhale,” Dr. Koontz explains. “So, with any lifting, pair your breath, make sure you don’t ‘bear down’ on the pelvic floor, and also learn to brace your core correctly to improve symptoms.”
Smith recommends this breathing exercise:
Take two to three belly breaths after you sit on the toilet, before your urine stream starts to help relax the pelvic floor muscles and sphincter around the bladder. This allows for the diaphragm ( your breathing muscle) to move in an efficient way, which allows the pelvic floor muscles to lengthen and contract in the appropriate way.
Belly breathing/diaphragmatic breathing also allows for proper intra-abdominal pressure to help void, which helps people empty their bladder and rectum completely, which prevents downward pressure on the pelvic floor muscles and keeps them strong and working efficiently.
Stay hydrated
If you find yourself purposely not drinking more water because you don’t want more bladder symptoms (such as leaking or going to the bathroom frequently), this can actually worsen symptoms.
“Decreasing water intake makes the contents of your bladder more concentrated, irritating your bladder,” says Dr. Koontz. “Bladder irritants, such as caffeine, soda, alcohol, and sparkling water (to name a few) can worsen symptoms. When you start adding more water to your day, try to not ‘chug’ a lot of water all at once. Small and frequent sips throughout the day will help your urinary system.”
“The pelvis isn’t that big, so with any chronic constipation, it can either irritate your bladder or go into a cycle of making the muscles overactive, making controlling your bladder more difficult,” Dr. Koontz states.
Make sure you can do Kegels correctly (if you need to do them)
That means not squeezing your glute muscles, inner thigh muscles, or abdominal muscles while contracting your pelvic floor muscles, Dr. Koontz explains. Also, don’t hold a Kegel during your entire workout. This can make symptoms worse.
Work on lengthening/relaxing the pelvic floor
“A tight or hypertonic pelvic floor can actually cause bladder symptoms. If you struggle with a tight pelvic floor, working on lengthening/relaxation of the pelvic floor can help,” says Dr. Koontz.
Insert diaphragmatic breathing with stretches, really focusing on your inhalation. Exercises can include happy baby, deep squat, inner thigh stretches, and child’s pose.
Greenland hit with ‘unusually extensive’ melting of ice sheet, boosting sea levels, scientists say
Saleen Martin – July 24,2022
It’s getting hotter in Greenland, and last weekend temperatures rose enough to cause 18 billion tons of the country’s ice sheet to melt over three days.
Scientists have warned about the fate of Greenland’s ice sheet and say what happened between July 15 and 17 is the latest massive melting event contributing to an increase in the global sea level.
The amount of water from the melt – about 6 billion tons a day, or 18 billion tons over the weekend – is enough to “cover West Virginia in a foot of water – 4 inches per day, roughly,” Ted Scambos, a senior research scientist at the University of Colorado’s Earth Science and Observation Center and National Snow and Ice Data Center, told USA TODAY.
Video: Sightseers capture huge chunk of Norway glacier crumbling into sea
Sightseers capture huge chunk of Norway glacier crumbling into sea
During a tour in Spitsbergen, Norway, sightseers captured a portion of the Monaco glacier breaking off and crumbling into the sea.
Much of the melting came from northern Greenland because warm air drifted over from the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, Scambos said.
There is also a high-pressure dome over Greenland. Together, they created an “unusually extensive melt event,” he said.
A July 2022 photo of melting summer sea ice in the Arctic Ocean near Greenland.
Temps heating up in Greenland
Temperatures vary over Greenland, but the coldest temperatures are in areas of high elevation, toward the center of the ice sheet, said William Lipscomb, a senior scientist in the National Center for Atmospheric Research’s Climate and Global Dynamics Laboratory.
Once temperatures are above freezing or 32 degrees Fahrenheit, the melting begins. Temperatures last weekend were around 60 degrees, or 10 degrees warmer than normal for this time of year, according to CNN.
“In recent years, we’ve seen a lot of heat waves in Greenland, this recent warming of it being one example,” Lipscomb told USA TODAY. “Any temperature above freezing can cause some surface melting.”
Greenland loses ‘tremendous amount of ice every year now’
In the 1980s and 1990s in Greenland, a melt event of this sort never occurred, but starting in the 2000s – especially since 2010 – the melting has been more extensive.
The melt is two times larger than normal, said Xavier Fettweis of the University of Liège. Fettweis, a polar researcher, created a model scientists use, along with satellite data, to study Greenland’s changes.
The melt is among two of the largest melts in the ice sheet history after the 2012 and 2019 melting events; in 2019, the runoff was about 527 billion tons. So far, the total melt is far below 2019 levels, but the situation is more dire over the Svalbard ice caps at the North of Norway, Fettweis said.
More melting was expected, said Scambos, of the National Snow and Ice Data Center. “This event is one of many events over the whole summer,” he said. “We can expect on the order of 100 billion tons of water going into the ocean. Greenland as a whole is losing a tremendous amount of ice every year now.”
A July 2022 photo of melting summer sea ice in the Arctic Ocean near Greenland.
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center ice scientist Nathan Kurtz was recently in Greenland to help better calibrate ICESat-2, one of the agency’s satellites used to monitor Greenland.
Its data has shown a loss of ice from Greenland of about 200 billion tons a year over the past two decades, Kurtz told USA TODAY. “This loss of ice contributes directly to global sea level rise, which has significant societal impacts,” he said.
Lipscomb, of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, said scientists measure the amount of water melted in units of gigatons per year, or 1 billion tons of water. Before climate change, about 600 gigatons of snowfall were coming in each year and about 300 gigatons were going out in the form of summer melting.
Now, Greenland’s ice sheet is losing nearly 300 gigatons of water each year more than it gains from snowfall, Lipscomb said. “There’s still time to avoid catastrophic sea level rise, but every year that greenhouse gas emissions continue at the present rate increases the chances of serious problems down the road.”
In some parts of the world such as Asia, seasonal water supply depend on the timing of the glacier melt.
“If the melt is happening too early, you may not be getting the water when you need it for farming,” he said. “And if the glaciers completely melt, then you won’t have the glacier melt water source at all. And that’s something people worry about for later this century as the warming continues.”
Saleen Martin is a reporter on USA TODAY’s NOW team. She is from Norfolk, Virginia – the 757 – and loves all things horror, witches, Christmas, and food.
Russians have so few troops left, they make one battalion out of three intercepted call
Kateryna Tyshchenko – July 23, 2022
A Russian serviceman says in an intercepted conversation that several battalions are being withdrawn from the combat zone due to high losses, and three battalions are to be made into one.
Source: intercepted phone call posted by the Chief Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defence
Quote: “Now they’ve withdrawn the battalions, they’ll make one out of three, because … there are no people left. And then, f**k knows whether they’ll make one.”
Details: The Russian soldier complains that 2,000 reinforcements have arrived in six months, of which 500 at most are still there.
He says that psychologists will be working with the personnel for 10 days since no one wants to go back to Ukraine.
The occupier also complains about the new artillery systems being used by the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
Quote: “Two days ago it flew into the building. They fire some kind of sh*t, you hear f**k-all when it’s coming out… Just two seconds – bam. Some kind of MLRS, like a Grad or Uragan. Only it’s silent. Everything they say on TV about our losses being minimal, that’s all crap.”
Russia hasn’t destroyed any of the devastating HIMARS artillery given Ukraine, US says, contradicting Russia’s claims
Mia Jankowicz – July 22, 2022
Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
Gen. Mark Milley on Wednesday said Russia hadn’t “eliminated” US-donated HIMARS.
This stands in stark contrast to Russian claims of having destroyed four of the weapons.
HIMARS are a prized piece of Ukraine’s attempt to hold Russia back in the east of the country.
Gen. Mark Milley says Russia hasn’t destroyed any of the HIMARS artillery the US has given to Ukraine.
Speaking at a Wednesday Pentagon press conference, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said: “To date, those systems have not been eliminated by the Russians.”
Milley acknowledged that the systems were at risk, adding: “I knock on wood every time I say something like that.”
His statement contradicted several claims by Russian officials and media outlets that Russia has destroyed some of the prized weapons, which Ukraine lobbied hard for and says give it a much-needed way to blunt Russia’s invasion.
The truck-like mounted units can fire precision-targeted heavy artillery about 50 miles, depending on the rounds used.
The US has given Ukraine 12 units so far, with another four on the way, Milley said.
His remarks followed several Russian claims to have destroyed as many as four of them.
In a briefing reported by the state-operated media outlet Zvezda, a Russian defense ministry representative said Russian forces had destroyed four HIMARS launchers from July 5 to Wednesday.
A July 6 Russian MOD Telegram post said two of these were taken out in Malotaranovka in the Donbas along with two ammunition depots for the weapon.
Milley didn’t specifically address the Russian claims in his briefing, instead saying in broad terms that the HIMARS hadn’t been destroyed.
When Insider approached the Pentagon for comment, a representative pointed to a July 8 briefing during which an unnamed senior defense official said the Russian claims were “not correct.” Insider requested an updated response to the most recent Russian claims.
The Russian Ministry of Defense didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment from Insider.
As well as supplying the units themselves, the Pentagon is sending hundreds of rounds for them and providing training in how to use them.
Milley said the HIMARS had been used “against Russian command-and-control nodes, their logistical networks, their field artillery near defense sites, and many other targets,” adding that strikes made by HIMARS were “steadily degrading” Russia’s efforts.
U.S. agrees to send Ukraine more HIMARS launchers, weaponry that is taking a toll on Russian forces
Michael Weiss, Sr. Correspondent – July 21, 2022
To hear Ukrainian military officials tell it in recent days, the indispensable weapon in month five of their defensive war against Russian invaders is the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, or HIMARS, an armored-vehicle-mounted long-range artillery launcher.
“HIMARS have already made a HUUUGE difference on the battlefield,” tweeted Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov on July 9. “More of them as well as [U.S.] ammo & equipment will increase our strength and help to demilitarize the terrorist state,” he wrote, referring to Russia.
So it no doubt came as gratifying news in Kyiv that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin confirmed Wednesday that Washington would send another four HIMARS platforms, which, he added, Ukraine has been “using so effectively and which have made such a difference on the battlefield.”
Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin at a Pentagon briefing on Wednesday. (Alex Brandon/AP)
HIMARS strikes have indeed been devastating, and the Russian military simply has no counter for their range, accuracy and mobility; the M31 series rockets that have been supplied with the HIMARS have the ability to hit a target within a 16-foot radius at a range of 52 miles. Because it’s on wheels, the launcher can be on the move seconds after firing, making it incredibly well protected against Russian counterbatteries.
Since the U.S. began supplying HIMARS in late June, the Ukrainians have managed three things simultaneously. First, according to Valery Zaluzhny, commander in chief of the Ukraine Armed Forces, their use has been an “important contributing factor” in “stabiliz[ing]” the front in the Donbas region, where Russia had been making slow but unmistakable gains, including capturing the sister cities of Severodonetsk and Lysychansk. The situation there, Zaluzhny said, is “complex, tense, but completely controllable.” (Contrast that sanguine tone with the catastrophic losses in manpower that Ukrainian officials, including President Volodymyr Zelensky, were citing just weeks ago, when 100 to 200 Ukrainian soldiers were being killedper day.)
A High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, or HIMARS, at a Marine Corps base camp in Jacksonville, N.C. (Lcpl. Jennifer Reyes/U.S. Marines/Planet Pix via ZUMA Press Wire)
Scores of Russian ammunition depots deep inside occupied parts of the Donbas have now gone up in smoke on a near daily basis in the last few weeks, prompting a host of new memes on Twitter and war watchers to routinely refer to the arrival of “HIMARS o’clock.” These strikes have been so punishing to the Russians’ efforts to resupply their own artillery systems, which far outnumber the Ukrainians’, that Moscow announced an operational “pause” in its campaign in the Donbas on July 7.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu ordered generals to prioritize destroying the HIMARS and other long-range artillery during a visit to the front in Ukraine on July 18, a tacit acknowledgment of how significant their impact has been.
Second, HIMARS helped Ukraine recapture the strategically vital Snake Island, in the Black Sea, scene of the famous retort to a Russian battleship from a besieged Ukrainian soldier, “Russian warship, go f*** yourself.” Even though not directly used against Russian positions on the island, the very presence of HIMARS weapons on the battlefield, in conjunction with Western-supplied anti-ship missiles such as Harpoons, has weighed heavily in Russia’s strategic calculation that holding the island would prove impossible in the long term.
A high-ranking Ukrainian military intelligence official told Yahoo News that Russia’s withdrawal from Snake Island, which the Kremlin tried to spin as a “goodwill gesture,” demonstrated a “real fear of our new long-range artillery capability.”
A satellite image shows smoke rising from Snake Island, off the coast of Ukraine, on June 29. (Planet Labs PBC/Handout via Reuters)
“We’ve hugely expanded our range of operational control over the Black Sea coast, and we’ve stopped the Russians from conducting amphibious operations in this area,” the official, who requested anonymity, said.
The official added that Russia’s hasty pullback has yielded a bonanza of actionable intelligence and matériel for Ukrainians. “Our team was able to find ammunition, different types of weapons, combat and personnel documents and even packed-up-and-ready-to-use aerial reconnaissance systems that the Russians absolutely need,” the official said.
Third, HIMARS has allowed Kyiv to prepare for an upcoming counteroffensive in the southern region of Kherson, the first major population center to fall to Vladimir Putin’s forces since the Russian invasion was launched on Feb. 24.
On July 11, HIMARS destroyed a Russian command center at the serially pummeled Chornobaivka Airport, killing 12 senior Russian officers, including Maj. Gen. Artem Nasbulin, chief of staff of the 22nd Army Corps, according to Serhiy Bratchuk, a Ukrainian official in the Odesa regional military administration.
This is an impressive troika of accomplishments for any weapons platform in just under a month of operations, especially given how few HIMARS launchers there are in Ukraine.
The United States supplied an initial four systems on June 23. In what is now a familiar “proof of concept” pattern of American security assistance, more were approved once the Ukrainians demonstrated their effectiveness on the battlefield.
A Ukrainian military commander with the rockets on a HIMARS vehicle in eastern Ukraine. (Anastasia Vlasova for the Washington Post via Getty Images)
As of July 20, a total of 16 U.S.-supplied HIMARS systems are either in the country or on their way, in addition to European equivalents: The Ukrainians have been purposefully ambiguous on how many systems are active for reasons of operational security. The U.K. has pledged six of the M270B1, an even more powerful version of the HIMARS, of which three have already arrived, and the Germans have committed three MARS II MLRS, another HIMARS cousin, that are due to arrive at the end of July. In total, Ukraine will soon take possession of 25 long-range Western artillery systems.
Reznikov, the Ukrainian defense minister, said at a July 19 event hosted by the Washington, D.C.-based think tank the Atlantic Council that Ukraine needs double that number to deter Russia, and quadruple it to wage any successful counteroffensive.
For Ukrainian troops who have long complained about Russian artillery supremacy in the Donbas, the arrival of HIMARS and its European equivalents would prove a much-needed shot in the arm, Ukrainian military officials say. For Ukrainian civilians, the weaponry delivered to date has meant a respite from unremitting carnage. The United Nations assesses that 4,731 civilians have been killed and 5,900 have been injured.
Originally designed to monitor forest fires, NASA’s Fire Information for Resource Management System (FIRMS) satellite network has beenused throughout the war by professionals and amateurs alike to chart the blazes that have resulted from artillery fire.All the recent FIRMS data points to a large reduction in Russia’s activity along the line of contact as its heavy gunsand multiple rocket launchers well beyond that line are destroyed in nightly HIMARS attacks by Ukrainian forces.
One of the key features of the HIMARS system is its modular nature, giving it the ability to fire a range of different rockets. In addition to being capable of firing M31 rockets, the system can fire one of the larger and more destructive Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) ballistic missiles.
An Army Tactical Missile System in action. (U.S. Army via Wikicommons)
With a range of up to 186 miles and the same pinpoint accuracy of M31, the United States had held off supplying ATACMS to the Ukrainians for fear they would be used to strike targets within Russia itself and set offan escalatory spiral that could drag NATO countries and Russia into a direct conflict.
President Biden appeared to rule out sending ATACMS to Ukraine in a May 31 New York Timesop-ed in which he emphasized the limits to American military support.
“We are not encouraging or enabling Ukraine to strike beyond its borders,” he wrote.
Of late, however, fears that Ukraine would use long-range artillery to attack targets inside Russia seem to have subsided. Kyiv has stuck to its agreement with Washington not to use HIMARS to hit inside Russia. And Reznikov recently told the Financial Times that he was confident Ukraine would eventually receive the ATACMS tactical ballistic missile.
If the U.S. does decide to send ATACMS, that too could fundamentally change the course of the war, putting the Kerch Bridge — Russia’s only direct connection to the occupied Crimean Peninsula — and the Sevastopol Naval Base, home to what remains of its Black Sea Fleet, well within striking distance.
Kaimo Kuusk, the Estonian ambassador to Ukraine, told Yahoo News that the Russians have already grown skittish over Ukraine’s long-range fire capability, as evidenced by the relocation of a “significant number” of ships in the Black Sea Fleet from its home port of Sevastopol in Crimea to Novorossiysk in southern Russia. “As the Ukrainians advance, Sevastopol will be within reach, and Moscow cannot afford another humiliation like the sinking of the Moskva,” Kuusk said, referring to Ukraine’s sinking of the flagship Russian cruiser on April 14 with domestically manufactured anti-ship missiles.
The South Korean military launches an Army Tactical Missile System during a military exercise. (Defense Ministry via Zuma Press Wire)
Maj. Gen. Volodymyr Havrylov, Ukraine’s deputy defense minister, told Yahoo News that the relocation could well be Moscow’s way of hedging its bets against heavier-duty artillery being sent to Ukraine. Asked if the Black Sea Fleet was quitting Crimean ports in anticipation of ATACMS, Havrylov responded, “I think so.”
According to Thomas Theiner, a former artillery specialist in the Italian army, ATACMS would dramatically worsen Russia’s growing strategic nightmare. “These missiles are 100% accurate up to a range of 186 miles,” he said, adding that the two most recent ATACMS versions, the M48 and M57 with the WAU-23/B warhead, carry 216 pounds of high explosives, “making them ideal to take out things like bridges.” The Russians, moreover, can’t intercept these rockets, which travel at more than three times the speed of sound, because their guidance software varies their flight patterns to confuse enemy air defenses.
ATACMS can eliminate even Russia’s best air-defense platform — the S-400 — and apart from destroying ammunition depots and command centers, they could also wipe out stocks of Kalibr cruise missiles stored in Crimea, which the Russians have fired on Ukrainian cities, often in retaliation for military losses.
“Even if the U.S. forbids the Ukrainians from targeting the Kerch Bridge,” Theiner said, noting that it could be interpreted as an attack on infrastructure that extends into Russian territory, “a few kilometers from it is a rail tunnel, which ATACMS can easily destroy by hitting it from either end. It would spell the end of all Russian logistics in the peninsula.”
The Ukrainians appear to be preparing the battlefield for a counteroffensive just north of Crimea. They struck the Antonovskiy Bridge in Kherson Oblast twice, on July 20 and 21, the second time forcing the Russians to close the bridge for repairs. The bridge is the main road link across the Dnieper River and a key artery for the logistics and reinforcements flowing to Russian occupiers in Kherson.
Ukrainian artillerymen checking equipment before advancing to the frontline in Kherson, Ukraine. (Metin Aktas/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
These preliminary strikes are believed to be largely symbolic, and the Antonovskiy Bridge was not heavily damaged. A former Western intelligence official told Yahoo News that hitting it twice was “an attempt to put psychological pressure on the Russians, to make them afraid that at a certain point they won’t be able to evacuate their troops from the west bank of the [Dnieper].”
“If we take for granted that in the event the Russians leave Kherson, they’ll destroy the two bridges crossing the river anyway,” the ex-official said, and added, “The Ukrainians may think it’s better not to give them a chance of a more or less controlled withdrawal.”
Pro-Russian military commentators on social media have grudgingly admitted that Ukrainian artillery strikes run the risk of making the bridge unusable for heavy military traffic, assuming it isn’t collapsed completely. The highly trafficked “Starshe Eddy” channel on Telegram was downright envious of Ukraine’s new capability and determination.
“The Armed Forces of Ukraine are doing what we should have done a long time ago, namely, they are destroying the bridge across the Dnieper in Kherson. The goal is obvious, to interrupt military logistics between the left bank and our foothold on the right bank,” a recent message read. “It is difficult to physically destroy the bridge itself, but to make its work impossible or extremely difficult is quite a feasible task. To do this, they will strike every day, preventing repair teams from restoring what was destroyed. Why we don’t do the same with the Ukrainian bridges across the Dnieper, I don’t understand.”
For the Ukrainians, the upcoming push in the south, which Reznikov has claimed will be made up of “a million-strong army,” has been given new impetus by Russian designs, according to U.S. intelligence, to hold sham “referendums” and then annex occupied Donbas territories à la Crimea. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov appeared to confirm those plans in an interview with Russian state media on July 20. “Now the geography is different,” he said. “And it is not only [Russian-occupied areas in Donbas] but also the Kherson region, the Zaporizhzhia region, and a number of other territories, and the process continues, and it continues consequently and persistently.”
Tellingly, Lavrov specified that “if the West delivers long-range weapons to Kyiv, the geographic goals of the special operation in Ukraine will expand even more,” in a further indication of just how seriously Moscow views these weapons systems.
With additional reporting by James Rushton in Kyiv
Russia taking hundreds of casualties daily in Ukraine war -U.S. official
Idrees Ali – July 22, 2022
Russia’s attack on Ukraine continues, in the Kharkiv
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The United States believes Russia’s military is suffering hundreds of casualties a day in its war in Ukraine, and with the loss so far of thousands of lieutenants and captains, its chain of command is struggling, a senior U.S. defense official said on Friday.
Nearly five months since President Vladimir Putin ordered an invasion of Russia’s neighbor, its forces are grinding through the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine and occupy around a fifth of the country.
The United States estimates that Russian casualties in Ukraine have reached around 15,000 killed and perhaps 45,000 wounded, CIA Director William Burns said on Wednesday, adding that Ukraine has also endured significant casualties.
The official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that in addition to the lieutenants and captains killed, hundreds of colonels and “many” Russian generals had been killed as well.
“The chain of command is still struggling,” the official said.
Russia classifies military deaths as state secrets even in times of peace and has not updated its official casualty figures frequently during the war. On March 25 it said 1,351 Russian soldiers had been killed.
The Kyiv government said in June that 100 to 200 Ukrainian troops were being killed per day.
The United States also believes that Ukraine had destroyed more than 100 “high-value” Russian targets inside Ukraine, including command posts, ammunition depots and air-defense sites, the U.S. official said.
The United States has provided $8.2 billion in security assistance since the war began.
Earlier this week, the Pentagon said it would provide Ukraine with four additional high mobility artillery rocket systems (HIMARS) in the latest weapons package.
On Friday, the White House said that package would be worth $270 million in military aid for Ukraine, including about $100 million for Phoenix “ghost” drones. The drones were designed mainly for striking targets, but little else is known about them, including their range and precise capabilities.
Russia says it is waging a “special operation” to demilitarize its neighbor and rid it of dangerous nationalists.
Kyiv and the West say Russia is mounting an imperialist campaign to reconquer a pro-Western neighbor that broke free of Moscow’s rule when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.
(Reporting by Idrees Ali and Steve Holland; editing by John Stonestreet, Nick Macfie and Leslie Adler)
Russia taking hundreds of casualties daily in Ukraine war -U.S. official
Idrees Ali – July 22, 2022
Russia’s attack on Ukraine continues, in the Kharkiv
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The United States believes Russia’s military is suffering hundreds of casualties a day in its war in Ukraine, and with the loss so far of thousands of lieutenants and captains, its chain of command is struggling, a senior U.S. defense official said on Friday.
Nearly five months since President Vladimir Putin ordered an invasion of Russia’s neighbor, its forces are grinding through the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine and occupy around a fifth of the country.
The United States estimates that Russian casualties in Ukraine have reached around 15,000 killed and perhaps 45,000 wounded, CIA Director William Burns said on Wednesday, adding that Ukraine has also endured significant casualties.
The official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that in addition to the lieutenants and captains killed, hundreds of colonels and “many” Russian generals had been killed as well.
“The chain of command is still struggling,” the official said.
Russia classifies military deaths as state secrets even in times of peace and has not updated its official casualty figures frequently during the war. On March 25 it said 1,351 Russian soldiers had been killed.
The Kyiv government said in June that 100 to 200 Ukrainian troops were being killed per day.
The United States also believes that Ukraine had destroyed more than 100 “high-value” Russian targets inside Ukraine, including command posts, ammunition depots and air-defense sites, the U.S. official said.
The United States has provided $8.2 billion in security assistance since the war began.
Earlier this week, the Pentagon said it would provide Ukraine with four additional high mobility artillery rocket systems (HIMARS) in the latest weapons package.
On Friday, the White House said that package would be worth $270 million in military aid for Ukraine, including about $100 million for Phoenix “ghost” drones. The drones were designed mainly for striking targets, but little else is known about them, including their range and precise capabilities.
Russia says it is waging a “special operation” to demilitarize its neighbor and rid it of dangerous nationalists.
Kyiv and the West say Russia is mounting an imperialist campaign to reconquer a pro-Western neighbor that broke free of Moscow’s rule when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.
(Reporting by Idrees Ali and Steve Holland; editing by John Stonestreet, Nick Macfie and Leslie Adler)
Only a quarter of Americans have confidence in the SCOTUS, according to a June 2022 Gallup Poll.
US Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan ruminated on the legitimacy of the Supreme Court at a conference full of lawyers and judges, warning that a disconnected court and political appointments could be “a dangerous thing for the democratic system.”
“By design, the court does things sometimes that the majority of the country doesn’t like,” Kagan said. “Overall, the way the court retains its legitimacy and fosters public confidence is by acting like a court, is by doing the kind of things that do not seem to people political or partisan, by not behaving as though we are just people with individual political or policy or social preferences.”
The core of the challenge to abortion rights that had been codified for 50 years was a Mississippi law that aimed to ban abortion after 15 weeks – which is stricter than the 24-week standard set by Roe v. Wade.
Within two weeks, the court also expanded gun rights and imposed limits on the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to implement greenhouse gas regulations.
She added that the court generally being on the opposite side of public opinion could have grave consequences for democracy.
“I’m not talking about any particular decision or any particular series of decisions. But if, over time, the court loses all connection with the public and the public sentiment, that’s a dangerous thing for democracy,” Kagan told the conference.
In the days before the Roe V. Wade decision, a Gallup poll showed that confidence in the Supreme Court had tanked — with only 25% of Americans saying that they had faith in the institution.
“We have a court that does important things, and if that connection is lost, that’s a dangerous thing for the democratic system as a whole,” Kagan reiterated.
Russia about to ‘run out of steam’ in Ukraine, British spy chief says
Phil Stewart – July 21, 2022
Russia’s attack on Ukraine continues, in Chernihiv region
ASPEN, Colorado (Reuters) – Russia’s military is likely to start an operational pause of some kind in Ukraine in the coming weeks, giving Kyiv a key opportunity to strike back, Britain’s spy chief said on Thursday.
Richard Moore, chief of the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) known as MI6, also estimated that about 15,000 Russian troops had been killed so far in its war in Ukraine, adding that was “probably a conservative estimate.”
“I think they’re about to run out of steam,” Moore said, addressing the Aspen Security Forum in Colorado, adding that the Russian military would increasingly find it difficult to supply manpower and materiel over the next few weeks.
“They will have to pause in some way, and that will give the Ukrainians opportunities to strike back.”
Nearly five months since Russia invaded Ukraine, Kyiv hopes that Western weapons, especially longer-range missiles such as U.S. HIMARS which Kyiv has deployed in recent weeks, will allow it to launch a counterattack in coming weeks and recapture Russian-occupied territory.
Moore underscored the need for Ukraine to show the war was winnable — both to preserve high Ukrainian morale but also to stiffen the resolve of the West as concerns mount about European energy shortages during the coming winter.
“It’s important, I think, to the Ukrainians themselves that they demonstrate their ability to strike back. And I think that will be very important for their continuing high morale,” Moore said.
“I also think, to be honest, it will be an important reminder to the rest of Europe that this is a winnable campaign by the Ukrainians. Because we are about to go into a pretty tough winter and … I don’t want it to sound like a character from ‘Game of Thrones.’ But winter is coming.
“And clearly in that atmosphere with the sort of pressure on gas supplies and all the rest, we’re in for a tough time,” Moore said.
The prospect of a Russian disruption of European energy supplies is one of the biggest global economic and political risks arising from the war. European countries fear they could face shortages next winter, if Russia cuts back deliveries during warm months when they typically replenish storage tanks.
Moore said the toll from Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine was mainly being felt in poorer, rural communities, and that Putin was not yet recruiting forces for the conflict from middle-class areas of St. Petersburg or Moscow.
“These are poor kids from rural parts of Russia. They’re from blue-collar towns in Siberia. They are disproportionately from ethnic minorities. And these are his cannon fodder,” Moore said.
Asked if he knew about Putin’s health, Moore said: “There’s no evidence that Putin is suffering from serious ill-health.”
(Reporting by Phil Stewart; editing by Jonathan Oatis)
Liz Cheney says Trump is ‘preying’ on his supporters by pushing 2020 election lie
Jon Ward, Chief National Correspondent – July 21, 2022
The patriotism of many Americans was turned into a “weapon” during the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, by a former president who continues to prey on his supporters, Rep. Liz Cheney said Thursday night.
Cheney, the vice chair of the Jan. 6 House select committee investigating the attack, delivered a forceful and sober final statement at the conclusion of a nearly three-hour hearing on Capitol Hill.
The Republican congresswoman from Wyoming addressed her comments to those who are skeptical of the committee’s work, which includes many voters in her own home state.
“The case against Donald Trump in these hearings is not made by witnesses who were his political enemies. It is, instead, a series of confessions by Donald Trump’s own appointees, his own friends, his own campaign officials, people who worked for him for years, and his own family,” Cheney said.
Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., delivers a closing statement during the House select committee hearing on Thursday. (Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)
Cheney made a distinction between Trump and his supporters, noting that many who voted for the former president would eagerly defend the country with their own lives. “Donald Trump knows that millions of Americans who supported him would stand up and defend our nation were it threatened. They would put their lives and their freedom at stake to protect her,” she said.
But, she said, on Jan. 6, 2021, Trump “turned their love of country into a weapon against our Capitol and our Constitution.”
Trump is even now “preying on their patriotism” by continuing to insist he somehow won the 2020 election, despite no evidence to support his baseless claims, Cheney said.
The nine hearings so far, she said, have shown that “Donald Trump’s plan to falsely claim victory in 2020, no matter what the facts actually were, was premeditated.”
A video of former President Donald Trump plays during Thursday night’s hearing of the Jan. 6 committee. (Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
The hearing Thursday showed evidence that Trump did nothing to stop the violence on Jan. 6, that Vice President Mike Pence called in police and military units to shut down the riot and that Trump rejected calls from his family and aides to call off the mob until he knew the attack would be repelled by law enforcement.
Cheney closed her comments by asking Americans to consider the gravity of allowing Trump back into power again.
“Every American must consider this: Can a president who is willing to make the choices Donald Trump made during the violence of Jan. 6 ever be trusted with any position of authority in our great nation again?” she said.
Cheney is facing the possibility of losing her seat in Congress if she loses the Aug. 16 primary in Wyoming to a Republican challenger who has parroted Trump’s lies about the 2020 election. But her words Thursday demonstrated a resolve on her part to continue waging a battle for the soul of the Republican Party.
Cheney shakes hands with Sandra Garza, the partner of Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick, who died from injuries he sustained in the insurrection. (Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)
When Cheney was stripped of her leadership position in the House Republican Conference last year, she vowed then to stop Trump from being reelected. “I will do everything I can to ensure that the former president never again gets anywhere near the Oval Office,” she said.
If Cheney loses her congressional seat, and even if she wins, she’s likely to run for president in 2024 in order to keep making the case that Trump is unfit to lead the GOP, much less the nation, according to conversations with Republicans close to the matter.
Cheney ended the hearing Thursday by making clear that the committee’s work is not done, and that there will be more hearings after Labor Day.
“Ronald Reagan’s great ally Margaret Thatcher said this: ‘Let it never be said that the dedication of those who love freedom is less than the determination of those who would destroy it,’” she said. “Let me assure every one of you this: Our committee understands the gravity of this moment, the consequences for our nation. We have much work yet to do, and will see you all in September.”
