This is a quick note. I’ve been reading in the various military analyses that the Russians are preparing for referendums (real or imagined) in the chunks of Ukraine that they’ve captured and that they might have some referendum on 11th September.

It seems as if the Russians will be trying to take as many chunks of Ukraine as they have and integrate them into the Russian Federation itself.

It seems as if this will include areas that were NOT among those they originally claimed, like, for example, Kharkiv in the north where they’ve seized a part of that Oblast. It will be more than just Donetsk and Luhansk and will probably also include Crimea.

Now one of the key issues herein is that once an area is a part of the Russian Federation, then the Russians have the right to defend it with nuclear weapons.

I’m not taking the nuclear weapons stuff seriously at this point. But it is a technical issue that the Russians can play on.

It does appear to me as if the Ukrainians will be waging "partisan/guerilla" war in the chunks of Ukraine that Russia has occupied.

I follow the way closely, and it definitely has slowed down and the movements are much slower as the two sides are locked together. The Russian advances in the east are at a snail’s pace.