The whole 'Bakhmut is surrounded and remaining Ukrainian forces are screwed' narrative sounds like standard Russian psyops to me. It is largely based on Russian propagandist maps. I believe that at some point it will fall, but just like with Severodonetsk and Lysychansk, there's going to be a planned and methodical withdrawal. Ukrainian forces are disciplined.
Lol. I thought we were told from those sipping on that Russian propaganda Kool-Aid that Zelenskyy is a US puppet.
Xi meeting him would counter a lot of the dumb Russian talking points, but it's smart of Zelenskyy to ask as it forces China to show how serious they really are about peace, especially given the recent intelligence on possible Chinese military aid/sales to Russia.
But Xi won't meet Zelenskyy though. In his mind, he views Zelenskyy below him. I expect a worthless phone call at best and let's be real, China's 12 point peace plan is in favor of Russian interest. If Ukraine is going to give up their territory, they will want security guarantees from NATO, which is ironic because it would destroy this whole narrative—NATO is the cause for the war— that Russia (and China) have claimed since the start lol.
How much are the troll farms paying you? The irony here is that they never bring up casualties on the other side in these discussions. They somehow think that a BM-21 Grad from the outskirts of Donetsk will magically only hit Ukrainian armed forces, and not Ukrainian civilians on the other end. Separatists are known to hide behind civilians, but the discussion never goes that way. Geez, I wonder why.
Anyways, Russian apologists, bots, and 'pacifists' always spout this lie that 'Ukraine is/has committed a genocide in the Donbas region'.
The UN mission on Donbass (Russia was a member of btw) counted every civilian death in the region, both in the Ukrainian and rebel sides. 27 civilian casualties in 2019, 26 in 2020, and 25 in 2021. But Russian trolls would have you think that Ukrainians were committing relentless 'massacres'.
Dombed Bombas for 8 years!