Mon - Here Comes the Sun ... To Namibia

Must Be Ukraine on the Brain

Interestingly, the advance in the east has been much faster than the Ukrainians' well-publicised offensive in the south towards the city of Kherson. Ukraine had telegraphed that offensive long before it got under way, while keeping quiet about its plans for the east. It all now appears to have been part of its plan: if not a diversion, then a screen to hide what it was preparing in the east.

It's clear it successfully wrong-footed Russia. Over the past few months, Russia's been redeploying forces from the east to bolster its defences in the south. Both fronts are now vulnerable.

But Ukraine is finding it harder to make gains in the south where they're more exposed, having to fight in mostly open countryside. An advancing army needs more troops and firepower to overcome a defending army.
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What's Next?



The militarily logical thing for Russia to do would be to fall back to Svatove, east of the administrative border with Kharkiv Oblast, and build defenses to protect that mass to its east. Yet Russia isn’t bothering to try. Ukraine General Staff reported last night that “In Luhansk region, the Russian military and their families left the town of Svatove. Only soldiers of the so-called 'people's militia' from among the local residents remained." With Russia abandoning them, will the Donbas cannon fodder decide to fight? Hopefully not. And with Svatove liberated, Ukraine can look east to the vast empty nothing of northern Luhansk Oblast.

The town of Starobilsk (pop. 16,600) anchors the entire region’s transportation network—all the major roads cross through town, as well as the lone rail line east of Svatove. It’s wide, it’s open, it’s flat, with few settlements standing in the way. The Aidar River borders Starobilsk to the west, but that would be nothing more than a nuisance to Ukrainian forces, who could cross it with little interference to the north or south of the town.

So if Svatove falls, so does northern Luhansk, and we’re almost back to the pre-February borders in that region. Ukraine could station a small territorial defense force garrison in Starobilsk, just for early-warning if Russia decides to cross that long border again, but the bulk of the force could head south and lay siege to Luhansk city, pressuring it from both the north and west. If Luhansk were liberated, western Luhansk would be effectively cut off. Pushing further south would threaten Donetsk city from multiple directions.



As for Russian forces, reinforcements were seen heading toward Mariupol. Russia isn’t feeling too great about its “land bridge” to Crimea, and for good reason. Ukraine doesn’t want to just cut that land bridge, but wants its Azov Sea coastline back. Not only is it of upmost economic importance, but it would also threaten more of Russia’s Black Sea fleet as well as the Kerch Bridge connecting Crimea to the Russian mainland.

By some estimates, Russia has around 40% of its total combat capabilities between Mariupol and Melitopol. Kherson city is actually strategically insignificant. Melitpol? Liberate it, and Russia loses supply lines to Kherson Oblast (a major reason Russia wanted its land bridge in the first place) and shatters Russia’s dreams of expanding to Transnistria in Moldova, through Odesa.

Quite simply, taking Melitopol would cause that entire sector to collapse, the way we saw in Kharkiv, and would provide a staging area for the liberation of Crimea.




A Clever Russian Delaying Tactic

The Russians are Desperate for a Win

What do Russian generals want? A win. Where do they want it? Bakhmut. And to get it, they are staging near continuous attacks in which artillery bounds Ukrainian positions while “zerg waves” of Russian infantry attempt to storm Ukrainian positions. The fighting may be the most intense of the entire invasion. So intense that at one point on Saturday, Russia reportedly agreed to a brief armistice in order to remove mounds of bodies along a slope leading up to Ukrainian positions.

Just remember, if Russia does take this location: it’s one small city. It won’t heal any of the damage that’s been done to the Russian military,

A Texas Judge Prefers a Pound of Cure

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. As an HIV doctor in central Texas, I know that nowhere is that adage truer than in the case of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), a medication that is up to 99% effective at preventing HIV. A recent ruling in a Texas federal court has the potential to threaten not just PrEP but access to all commonsense preventive medical care for people in the U.S.

A recent ruling in a Texas federal court has the potential to threaten not just PrEP but access to all commonsense preventive medical care for people in the U.S.

On Wednesday, a U.S. district court judge ruled in favor of Braidwood Management Inc., a Christian-owned company that argued in its initial complaint that the Affordable Care Act’s requirement that insurers and employers offer plans that cover PrEP for free “forces religious employers to provide coverage for drugs that facilitate and encourage homosexual behavior, prostitution, sexual promiscuity, and intravenous drug use.”

This argument is not only terribly prejudiced, but it is also simply wrong. PrEP is used by hundreds of thousands of people in the U.S. of all sexual orientations and genders. I see many patients, young and old, gay and straight, of all races and political affiliations, who do not fit the narrow stereotypes mentioned in the lawsuit.

I have patients who are in long-term monogamous relationships and take PrEP because their spouse or partner has HIV and they want an extra layer of protection. Others take PrEP so that they are sure they are protected and have control over their health rather than relying on another person. Some have been assaulted in the past and want to ensure that they are protected in the future. All of these patients can now live their lives with more peace and confidence, and they would be devastated if access to this medication were taken away.

Is TucKKKer About To Come Out In Favor Or More Cancer?

President Joe Biden will announce new steps to expand on his administration's "Cancer Moonshot" initiative to prevent deaths from the disease in a speech Monday afternoon at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston.

In his remarks, which come on the 60th anniversary of Kennedy's speech on his goal of putting a man on the moon, Biden will announce he's naming longtime science adviser Renee Wegrzyn as the inaugural director of the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health, which he created in March. The agency's mission is to improve the federal government's ability to foster health and biomedical research.

"Under Dr. Wegrzyn’s leadership, ARPA-H will support programs and projects that undertake challenges ranging from the molecular to the societal, with the potential to transform entire areas of medicine and health in order to prevent, detect, and treat some of the most complex diseases such as Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and cancer, providing benefits for all Americans," the White House said.

Biden will also sign an executive order that aims to boost biotechnology and biomanufacturing to ensure that cutting-edge technologies like those needed to fight cancer will be developed and made in the U.S., the White House said.