Ukraine Update
By 
Looks like Zelensky will exit Zaluzhny:
Ukraine’s popular army chief Valery Zaluzhny was called to a meeting at the president’s office on Monday and told he was being fired, two sources familiar with the matter told CNN, following weeks of growing speculation over tensions between Volodymyr Zelensky and his top commander.
A formal announcement has not been made, meaning Zaluzhny was still in post as of Wednesday evening, however, a presidential decree is expected by the end of the week, one of the sources told CNN, in what would be the biggest military shakeup by Zelensky since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion almost two years ago.
Rumors of the meeting, and Zaluzhny’s dismissal, exploded around Kyiv on Monday evening, lent credibility by a rift widely understood to have opened up between the president and his commander-in-chief following the failure of the Ukrainian counteroffensive last year.
Given the failure of the summer counter-offensive, someone had to pay. Intra-war dismissals like this usually involve some combination of legitimate complaints about military performance (think Lincoln-McClellan or Truman-MacArthur) and political infighting (also think Lincoln-McClellan and Truman-MacArthur). I don’t have a strong opinion either way about this one, but noted above someone had to answer for the failure of the counter-offensive to reach its goals.
- EU finally on board for a 50 billion Euro aid package.
- Russia’s economic situation is desperate but not serious; the state and the economy are unlikely to collapse, but the war has effectively broken the fiscal stability that Putin worked so carefully for twenty years to establish and preserve.
- The executive branch has immense latitude with respect to national security decisions, including the transfer of weapons, that Congress hesitates to touch.
- A nice look at the demographics of the Ukrainian military, with thoughts on what might come as the situation grows more tight.
- Black Sea Fleet may have lost another corvette.
- Old habits die hard with respect to the release of war news to the public.