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Weather: A 30 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms, mainly before 2pm. Mostly sunny, with a high near 85. Breezy, with an east wind 14 to 16 mph, with gusts as high as 22 mph. Tuesday Night: A 10 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms before 8pm. Mostly clear, with a low around 73. East wind 7 to 11 mph, with gusts as high as 20 mph.
- Daily weather briefing from the National Weather Service in Jacksonville here.
- Drought conditions here. (What is the Keetch-Byram drought index?).
- Check today’s tides in Daytona Beach (a few minutes off from Flagler Beach) here.
- Tropical cyclone activity here, and even more details here.
Today at a Glance:
The Nobel Prize in Physics is awarded at 5:45 a.m. at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (Kungl. Vetenskapsakademien), Session Hall, Lilla Frescativägen 4A, Stockholm.
Flagler Beach United Methodist Church Food Pantry now including evening hours: Flagler Beach United Methodist Church‘s food pantry is open today from 9:30 a.m. to noon and again from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. at 1500 S. Daytona Ave, Flagler Beach. The church’s mission is to provide nourishment and support in a welcoming, respectful environment. To find us, please turn at the corner of 15 Street and S. Daytona Ave, pull into the grass parking area and enter the green door.
The Palm Coast City Council meets at 6 p.m. at City Hall. For agendas, minutes, and audio access to the meetings, go here. For meeting agendas, audio and video, go here.
Flagler Beach’s Planning and Architectural Review Board meets at 5:30 p.m. at City Hall, 105 S 2nd Street. The board takes up Veranda Bay’s latest proposal. For agendas and minutes, go here.
The Bunnell Planning, Zoning and Appeals Board meets at 6 p.m. at the Government Services Building, 1769 East Moody Boulevard, Bunnell. The board consists of Carl Lilavois, Chair; Manuel Madaleno, Nealon Joseph, Gary Masten and Lyn Lafferty.
The Flagler Beach Library Writers’ Club meets at 5 p.m. at the library, 315 South Seventh Street, Flagler Beach.
Random Acts of Insanity Standup Comedy, 8 p.m. at Cinematique Theater, 242 South Beach Street, Daytona Beach. General admission is $8.50. Every Tuesday and on the first Saturday of every month the Random Acts of Insanity Comedy Improv Troupe specializes in performing fast-paced improvised comedy.
Notebook: The front page of the March 29, 1960, issue of the New York Times included a prominent story headlined, “Nixon Pledges Hard Fight, Devoid of Personal Attacks.” The headline writer could not possibly have predicted Nixon’s “I am not a crook” echo 13 years later, delivered at Disney’s Contemporary Hotel not far from the shop hawking Cruella de Vil merch. Even in 1960 the irony of the pledge, by a man who had soldered his reputation from lives he wrecked on the House Un-American Activities Committee, could not have been lost on anyone. For every Hiss he scored, untold reputations were smeared as he hid behind his and the current president’s favorite shield: the absolute immunity granted public officials lying, slandering, ridiculing or vilifying anyone, as long as it’s within the scope of official duties. That immunity did not exist for private individuals or the press smearing anyone, officials included. At least not until the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled on Sullivan v. New York Times on March 9, 1964, a case triggered by the very same issue of the New York Times that featured Nixon lying on the front page. Flip past the pages with stories about the Supreme Court upholding the conviction of a Soviet spy, a warning from Castro to the United States to quit its “unfriendly” policies, a UN study blaming cancer on smoking, ads for J& B Scotch, the Studebaker Lark, TWA, Braniff and Easter Airlines ads, and there it was: the “Heed Their Rising Voices” ad with its minor factual errors that an Alabama court turned into a lynching of the New York Times, with a pedophile for a judge, until the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the judgment and established the “Sullivan” standard that remains with us to this day, for a few days more anyway: it is next on Trump’s fascist agenda.
—P.T.
The Live Calendar is a compendium of local and regional political, civic and cultural events. You can input your own calendar events directly onto the site as you wish them to appear (pending approval of course). To include your event in the Live Calendar, please fill out this form.
October 2025
Nar-Anon Family Group
Bunnell City Commission Meeting
Palm Coast City Council Workshop
Flagler Beach United Methodist Church Food Pantry
Flagler County School Board Information Workshop
Flagler County Affordable Housing Committee Meeting
Book Dragons, the Kids’ Book Club, at Flagler Beach Public Library
Budgeting by Values: A Virtual Class to Learn Budgeting Skills
NAACP Flagler Branch General Membership Meeting
Flagler County School Board Meeting
Random Acts of Insanity Standup Comedy
Separation Chat: Open Discussion
The Circle of Light A Course in Miracles Study Group
Weekly Chess Club for Teens, Ages 9-18, at the Flagler County Public Library
For the full calendar, go here.
Justice Brennan’s opinion took the libertarian arguments of Brandeis, Holmes and others and wove the threads into the first full statement by the Supreme Court as a whole of an American theory of free speech: the Madisonian theory. The opinion adopted Madison’s view that the citizens are sovereign in the United States, and that their freedom to criticize the government is “the central meaning of the First Amendment.” It treated free speech as not just an individual right but a political necessity. It held the Sedition Act of 1798 unconstitutional, and approved Justice Holmes’s dissenting statement in Abrams v. United States that the idea of seditious libel was inconsistent with the First Amendment.
For First Amendment scholars it was a stunning decision. It evoked the views of Alexander Meiklejohn, philosopher and educator, who for many years had argued that the Constitution made the people their own governors and hence that anything they said in their governing capacity was immune from penalties.”
–From Anthony Lewis’s Make No Law: The Sullivan Case and the First Amendment (1991).
Pogo says
@As stated
Amen, milady.
https://www.moviemaker.com/jane-goodall-blast-trump-musk-netanyahu-space/
Ray W. says
A hearing is underway to determine how much FP&L will be able to raise its rates on its customers.
Make of this what you will.
Me?
FP&L began its conversion away from coal-fired electricity plants to natural gas-powered plants long before nearly all other utility companies. For decades, Floridians serviced by FP&L paid less than average prices for the electricity FP&L produced. In recent years, FP&L accurately advertised that the prices its customers paid were 30% less than the national average. Combined-cycle natural gas turbines were that much more efficient than coal-fired plants. FP&L made money. Floridians saved money.
Today, solar power has evolved into a more efficient electrical generation option than natural gas. Study after study predicts significant savings for consumers should utility companies such as FP&L continue efforts to rely more and more on solar power for new sources of electricity generation.
I take no position on how much more money FP&L should get to generate electricity in the future. After all, at the time that FP&L began its shift to natural gas over coal, the short-term view was that coal was a better choice because less and less natural gas was being extracted and many believed in the theory of peak oil. Most utility companies could not see what FP&L could see. Even as late as 2005, coal accounted for nearly 50% of all U.S. electricity production (today, coal accounts for about 15% of all electricity generated in the U.S.).
But long-term, natural gas turned out to be the least expensive option available to utility companies, at least until solar and onshore wind evolved enough to replace natural gas as the least expensive options. Few could see the coming Shale Revolution (the phrase the energy industry uses to describe its transformation since 2009). In 2001, according to the EIA, the average U.S. price paid for the standard unit of natural gas (MMbtu) was $8.84 per unit. In 2024, that average price was $3.34 per unit. But the cost of solar energy production has dropped even more rapidly, as has the cost of onshore wind power.
My position is that FP&L should continue to adopt a strategy of choosing the least expensive form of electricity generation, whatever that source should turn out to be, so as to continue to provide to Floridians the lowest possible cost per kilowatt-hour consumed. If it does that, FP&L will continue to make money. Floridians will continue to save money.
Sherry says
The fascist military take over of our country is actually beginning in Chicago! I dare you to watch this Maga:
Pogo says
@Ray W
Respectfully, I add:
As stated
https://www.google.com/search?q=who+owns+fpl
I believe that it is fair to state that we ought to be mindful that in total, it is NextEra Energy, not just FPL, that must be evaluated and taken into account.
All input welcome.
Ray W. says
Here is an interesting twist on the American energy story.
The Associated Press reports that on Monday, the Bureau of Land Management conducted a lease auction on 167 million tons of coal to be mined from federal land located in southeastern Montana.
The last time the Bureau of Land Management conducted such a lease sale, it involved 721 million tons of coal to be mined in Wyoming. That sale brought in a bid by Peabody Energy of $793 million, at a rate of $1.10 per ton.
The amount bid by the Navajo Transitional Energy Company (NTEC), the sole bidder for the Montana coal? $186,000, or one-tenth of a penny per ton, rounded off. Prior to the sale, NTEC argued that coal has a low market value because coal market studies show that fewer and fewer coal utilities will continue to buy coal.
Tomorrow, another 440 million tons of coal will be up for bid in central Wyoming.
Next Monday, the Bureau of Land Management will conduct a lease sale on coal to be mined from the Spring Creek mine, near Decker, Montana, a site that provides coal to five coal-fired plants in the region that are expected to stop operating within the next 10 years.
On September 20, 2025, the Bureau of Land Management sold 53 million tons of “metallurgical coal”, i.e., coking coal, which is critical for the production of steel, not power plants. That lease sale brought $46,816,000, or 88 cents per ton, divided equally between the federal Treasury and the State of Alabama.
In response to the Alabama sale, Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum wrote:
“By expanding access to America’s world-class metallurgical coal reserves, we are creating good paying jobs, supporting domestic steel production, and reinforcing our nation’s Energy Dominance.”
In another part of the BLM press release, the agency wrote that President Trump Executive Order 14154 provides for “reduced royalty rates” received by the government from its coal lease sales.
Harvard University economics expert, James Strock, told a reporter that the sale of leases on coal does not mean that the coal will ever be mined, given that it is unlikely that new coal-fired electricity plants will ever be built.
He added:
“I don’t expect these leases to have much real-world impact.”
Make of this what you will.
Me?
There are many different types of coal. Coal appropriate for electricity plants is not the same as the coking coal needed in steel mills. My maternal grandmother made her living and raised six children after my grandfather died from pneumonia before the discovery of penicillin during the Great Depression. Coal was available to homeowners in many different types at many different prices. Her company specialized in the most expensive high-grade coal that burned cleaner and with less smoke and waste. She negotiated an exclusive contract for her region with the company that mined that type of coal.
I have repeatedly commented on the FlaglerLive site that the last new coal-fired electricity generating plant, named Sandy Creek Energy Station, opened in 2013 in Texas.
Yes, coal remains valuable as a political question, but the economic argument disappeared nearly two decades ago..
It takes between seven and 10 years to build a coal plant from scratch, according to an EIA study, meaning from submitting a permitting application to obtaining financing to constructing the plant to certification of completion. Getting a permit is not the problem. It is the financing part that is the problem. Most electricity plants do not receive financing until the owners have secured long-term contracts to sell the electricity they intend to produce. Since it costs so much to produce electricity from coal, compared to other types of production, no utility is willing to enter into a long-term contract to buy coal-fired electricity. Therefore, no lender will risk the money to build a coal-fired plant.
Again, it is an economic issue, not a political issue.
If the 2013 Texas plant was proposed in 2006 that means zero companies have sought permits to build a coal-fired plant in the last 19 years. I understand that Mitusbishi Heavy Industries in America has nearly 20 natural gas-fired plants somewhere in the construction pipeline right now.
As an aside, at the same time that the Trump administration is imposing new regulatory conditions on solar and wind farms, it wasting money on extending the lifespan of aging coal plants. As of now, he has ordered the wasting of $625 million on expending the lifespan of aging coal-fired plants. Some of that money is likely being spent on a Michigan coal-fired plant that was to be shut down this summer. The utility company operating the plant, in anticipation of the shut-down, built a new electricity plant to replace it. But the federal government stepped in and forced the utility company to keep the plant open, at an operating cost of an additional $1 million per day, had the utility been able to fully use its newly-built plant, a cost apparently being paid by the utility’s customers.
Let’s face it. The EIA studied 242 electricity-generating plants located all over the world to determine the costs of building and operating all types of utility-scale power plant of all. According to the results of its study, coal-fired power plant electricity-generating costs over the lifetime of such plants are nearly five times the costs for solar power plants over the same lifetime.
Ray W. says
The Houston Chronicle reports the permitting of two new natural gas-fired power plants in Texas, at a construction cost of $950 million.
The two new plants will provide 860 megawatts of power when they open by the end of 2028, enough to service 215,000 homes. But the reporter writes that the plants are planned to provide most of the electricity to West Texas natural gas and crude oil extraction companies.
Also, according to the reporter, in 2024, Texas utility regulators approved the construction of between $13 and $15 million in new long-distance power lines, with residents and businesses shouldering the costs.
The reporter also pointed out that in recent years, investments in “renewable energy” have boomed in Texas.
According to the reporter:
“Companies building gas-fired power generation say wind and solar projects – which have no fuel costs and low operating costs – have depressed wholesale electricity prices, making it much less economic for them to build new power plants.”
According to the Solar Energy Industries Association, during the first half of 2025, Texas added 3.8 GWs of new solar, with another 9.7 GWs of new solar expected to be added in Texas during the second half of 2025.
Based on 2023 data, the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts projects the addition of 40 GWs of new solar power over the next five years, or by the end of 2029.
Make of this what you will.
Me?
Demand for new sources of electricity expands all over the country.
If the Houston Chronicle article is accurate, Texas is going to add less than 1 gigawatt of electrical power by the end of 2028 from natural gas, at a time when its government has on record the expected construction of 40 GW of new solar power by the end of 2029. I found a report from an Environmental Integrity Project holding that many new natural gas powered plants have been proposed, perhaps as many as 130 plants, but applications for permits are lacking. NRG has 5.4 GWs of new gas-powered plants planned for 2029-2032. Entergy Texas plans two new such plants by mid-2028, totaling just over 1.2 GWs. SWEPCO plans two such plants, with completion dates by 2028, totaling 1.5 GWs. Should financing be obtained for these plants, the total energy output will still be far short of what Texas needs.
The natural gas power industry is on record as complaining that solar and wind power has become so cheap that it is making it hard for anyone to justify economically the building of new gas-powered plants.
The EIA releases a “Today in Energy” report. I found an August 20, 2025 report, in which the EIA said that for 2025, 33 GW of new solar power will be added to the American grid, a figure just under 50% of the 64 GW of power that will be added from all sources. 4.7 of the 64 GWs will come from new natural gas plants. 7.8 GW will come from new wind power sources. 18.3 GW will come from new battery storage facilities.
From that same report, in 2002, a total of 58 GWs of new power from all sources were added to the U.S. grid (the previous record). 57 of those 58 GWs came from natural gas. We have gone from 57 GWs of natural gas power added in one year (2002) to 4.7 GWs of natural gas power added in one year (2025).
Renewable sources of energy have gone from almost zero GWs added to the grid in 2002 to nearly 58 GWs added in 2025.
From the same EIA Today in Energy report, in 2025, among a total of 9.8 GWs of electrical power generation to be retired from all sources, 6.2 GWs of coal-fired electricity generation will be retired from the nation’s total electricity supply.
Again, my argument is straightforward. One of our two political parties is trying to make coal a political issue. And perhaps it will succeed in doing so. But the economic issue was settled 20 years ago and coal lost.
Is it reasonable to argue that one of our two political parties is trying to hold back the American electricity generating sector, to the economic detriment of us all?
And, is it reasonable to argue that if our President were to declare solar and wind a “scam”, he would be lying to the American people, perhaps in hopes that the more gullibly stupid among us would internalize his lie and then launder it to others?
Ray W. says
Hello Pogo.
You are correct to argue that FPL Group changed its name to NextEra Energy, a change that took place in 2010, but FP&L has retained its status as a subsidiary company, despite the parent company’s new name.
From what I have sifted, the change finally occurred because FP&L had long before expanded operations beyond Florida.
NextEra Energy is involved in the wholesale power generating sector, and FP&L remains as a rate-regulated utility company.
Ray W. says
According to a recent Associated Press story, based on a study that analyzed energy data obtained from 88 nations, for the first time in history, the sum of energy produced by the renewable energy sector surpassed the sum of electricity generated by the coal-fired energy sector.
But perhaps more significantly, from January through September, the amount of new renewable energy added to the overall worldwide energy grid exceeded the overall increase in demand for new sources of electricity.
As for solar power alone, the sector grew by 31% in the first six months of 2025. Wind power grew by 7.7% over the same time frame. Total fossil fuel production of energy dropped by slightly less than 1% in that time.
Make of this what you will.
Me?
If the story is accurate, the world may have just turned the corner. Additional new renewable energy sources have surpassed increases in new demands for electricity.
And the world is at a tipping point. New sources of renewable energy keep getting more and more cost competitive compared to energy derived from fossil fuels.
The math is straightforward.
First, renewable energy has to become cheaper than fossil-fuel energy.
Once that happens, every increase in solar power efficiency makes solar power more and more competitive. Every drop in solar panel manufacturing cost makes solar power more and more competitive. Every increase in wind power generation efficiency makes wind farms ever less expensive to operate.
Solar and wind power generation is already cheaper than all other options, and the differences will keep getting wider and wider in favor of renewable energy.
Pogo says
@Anybody
Sift through this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NextEra_Energy
No, really — ALL of it. I was born at night, but not last night.
Sherry says
A Warning From Robert Reich:
Friends,
The direction we’re going is either martial law or civil war.
Americans from so-called “red” states, with the backing of their Republican governors and legislatures, are on the brink of using lethal force against Americans in so-called “blue” states, whose Democratic governors and legislatures strongly oppose the moves.
I pray we don’t come close to this but Trump has now ordered the deployment of 400 members of the Texas National Guard to several states, including Oregon and Illinois — ostensibly to protect ICE agents and facilities from protesters. The first group of Texas Guard troops is expected to arrive in Chicago tomorrow.
The troops are under the control of the Pentagon, with Trump as commander-in-chief. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said that “the orders will be effective immediately for an initial period of 60 days.”
Less than an hour after Trump’s order, Greg Abbott, the Republican governor of Texas, responded that he “fully authorize[s]” such a move by Trump. “You can either fully enforce protection for federal employees or get out of the way and let Texas Guard do it,” Abbott said in a post on X.
The Democratic governors of Oregon and Illinois have sought emergency injunctions against these and similar deployments.
Late Sunday night, a federal judge in Oregon (appointed by Trump) temporarily blocked the mobilization of any state national guards to that state. Today, a federal judge in Illinois declined to block the deployment of National Guard units there.
What is Trump’s plan? What is the troika behind him (Stephen Miller, JD Vance, Russell Vought) seeking to accomplish, and how?
Sad to say, I believe Trump and his enablers have worked this out in advance. At the Pentagon on September 30, 2025, Trump pitched the plan to use American soldiers for the purpose of punishing his political enemies.
He told hundreds of United States military leaders that they must prioritize “defending the homeland” against the “invasion from within” in American cities run by “radical-left Democrats.” He stated his intention is to use certain cities “as training grounds for our military.”
The first step has been for the Department of Homeland Security to deploy ICE agents to use aggressive tactics in targeted cities.
ICE has sent masked and armed federal agents into cities with Democratic mayors — arresting and detaining people outside immigration courtrooms, firing tear gas and chemical munitions on city streets without warning, raiding homes and apartments in the middle of the night and arresting their occupants willy-nilly — including Americans and people legally in the country, and children, using racial profiling to stop anyone looking Latino and demand proof of citizenship without warrants, and detaining people they believe are here illegally, and doing so without due process.
The second step is for such aggressive tactics to provoke demonstrations, and for Trump to exaggerate the scale and severity of them.
Trump has described Portland as a “war-ravaged” city “burning to the ground,” with “insurrectionists all over the place.” In fact, demonstrations there had been muted and rarely expanded beyond a one-block radius of the immigration detention facility in the city.
On September 6, 2025, Trump posted on social media an image of the Chicago skyline in flames, stating “Chicago about to find out why it’s called the Department of WAR,” including a depiction of himself in the image of the fictitious warmonger character Lt. Col. Kilgore from the 1979 film Apocalypse Now, titling the post “Chipocalypse Now.”
Yesterday, he described Chicago as a crime-ridden “war zone.”
The third step is for Trump and Hegseth to deploy federalized National Guard troops to control the demonstrators, an act that’s already enflaming the public and provoking some actual violence.
Until Trump’s announcement that he was sending troops into Portland, protests rarely numbered more than two dozen people. Since his announcement, clashes have become more violent.
The fourth step will be for Trump and Hegseth to invoke the Insurrection Act.
All of this is preamble for Trump’s real goal: to invoke the Insurrection Act, which empowers a president to deploy the U.S. military and to federalize the National Guard units of the individual states to suppress civil disorder, insurrection, or armed rebellion against the federal government of the United States.
It is a statutory exception to the Posse Comitatus Act, which limits the president’s power to deploy the U.S. military within the United States.
The Insurrection Act requires that after invoking it, but before exercising its powers, a president must formally order the dispersion of people committing civil unrest or armed rebellion.
The major clause of the Insurrection Act reads:
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That in all cases of insurrection, or obstruction to the laws, either of the United States, or of any individual state or territory, where it is lawful for the President of the United States to call forth the militia for the purpose of suppressing such insurrection, or of causing the laws to be duly executed, it shall be lawful for him to employ, for the same purposes, such part of the land or naval force of the United States, as shall be judged necessary, having first observed all the pre-requisites of the law in that respect.
***
As I said, I hope we don’t come near to this. I hope the federal courts, including the Supreme Court, stops Trump’s plan. But I believe it is Trump’s plan (the details of which have been worked out by the troika of Vance, Miller, and Vought), and they are implementing it as quickly as they can.
I don’t want to unduly alarm you, but you need to be aware of this imminent danger. It’s unfolding very rapidly.
Please share.
Sherry says
The FUTURE of military readiness will certainly depend more and more on the “brains” needed to program and control the Cyber/AI/Automation/Robotics of war machines. The macho/chauvinistic BS spouted by trump and hegseth would be completely laughable if they didn’t have so many Maga cult brainwashed followers.
I guess Maga also means going back to World War I !! Hand to hand combat in the trenches, wearing gas masks. . . LOL!
Meanwhile, feeble minded old man trump is massively cutting funding for “cyber security”! While he is being manipulated into “Inciting” war between our states. . . against the constitution and a federal judge’s ruling! Our people are not feeling secure, peaceful and “safer” under fascistic military attacks!!!
Ray W. says
Consistent with another of my comments in this thread, the second of two coal lease sales scheduled for this week took place this morning. The same Navajo tribe was the only bidder, winning the right to pay to the federal government less than a penny per ton for 441 million tons of coal to be mined from reserves located in Campbell County, Wyoming. Again, according to a Harvard professor, winning the right to mine the coal doesn’t mean that the coal will ever be mined. It only means that if the coal is ever mined, the company that won the bid will then have to pay into the Treasury less than a penny a ton.
Make of this what you will.
Me?
I looked it up. A “key” benchmark price for “Central Appalachian” coal appropriate for use in electricity generation is $79 per short ton, as of early October 2025, though I admit that the “key” price may not be the price mine owners are getting across region to region. But from the lack of response to openly advertised lease sale, is it reasonable to argue that our current administration is willing to accept less than a penny per ton for the sale of that type of coal?
Sherry says
OMG! Stupid Me! I has just dawned me me that trump and hegseth aren’t preparing our military to fight wars with “other” countries. They are preparing for fighting in the streets during the upcoming fascist “Military Takeover” of the USA!!! DUH!
Ray W. says
A Ukrainian officer was quoted in a recent story about Russian forces engaging in a final push before the fall season of mud begins. As many FlaglerLive readers may remember, the Russians delayed their invasion of the Ukraine until late February 2022 in order to ensure that the roads and fields were sufficiently frozen solid so that military maneuvers could be successfully mounted.
I have read Russian accounts from WWII referring to the fall season as “General Mud”, meaning that the weather commands all action, not actual generals.
The officer is quoted as saying:
“What we’re seeing now — this uptick in assault activity — is because this is their final push. That’s why I keep saying it’s critical that we hold out. … The weather won’t be on their side. It never favors the advancing side. It’s always easier to sit tight than to crawl through mud or black soil. That’s what’s behind the current intensity of assaults.”
It was reported that two days ago, Russian President Putin told gathered military leadership that Russian forces had seized 4,900 square kilometers of Ukrainian soil thus far in 2025.
The American nonprofit Institute for the Study of War estimates that, from “verified data points”, Russian forces have seized roughly 3,561 square kilometers of Russian soil thus far in 2025.
As an aside, yesterday, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister, Sergey Ryabkov, said that the “momentum” for resolving the Ukrainian War gained from Putin’s meeting with President Trump in Alaska has been “exhausted.”
Make of this what you will.
Me?
I looked it up. Flagler Country comprises a land area of 1,480 square kilometers. If Putin’s figures are accurate, after more than nine months of fighting this year, Russian forces have captured Ukrainian land in a totality of slightly more than three times the size of Flagler County at a huge cost of lives lost and soldiers injured and equipment destroyed. If the ISW figures are correct, the Russian army has captured about two and one-third Flagler County equivalents of Ukrainian land thus far this year.
Ukrainian land, overall, covers 603,628 square kilometers. The ISW reports that Russian forces hold less than 20% of Ukrainian soil. If it is accurate that Russia holds some 20% of the Ukraine, rounded up, this means that roughly 480,000 square kilometers of Ukrainian soil remains free from Russian control. If fighting slows to a crawl for the remainder of the year due to weather conditions, and if the ISW figure is more accurate than Putin’s, it will take Russian forces about 135 years at its 2025 pace to seize and hold the rest of the Ukraine.
The question revolves around the issue of numeracy. Russian sources repeatedly claim advance after advance. Over time, it begins to sound to the more innumerate of the Russian populace that large gains are taking place. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers and sailors and Marines are committed to the effort, making it even easier to believe the professional liars within the Russian government. Some sources say that the Ukrainian defense forces are vastly outnumbered in manpower, munitions and weaponry. Yet, for all the claims, Russia has for the third year in a row been almost entirely thwarted in its efforts. History shows that in the opening days of the war, Russia expanded its hold over Ukrainian soil from about 14% to 26%. The Ukrainian’s counterattacked, reducing the Russian holdings back down to just over 16%. Three years later, Russia holds about 18% of Ukrainian land.
I have long maintained the Russia has already lost the war it started in the Ukraine, relying on a philosophy espoused by Winston Churchill in 1943 when he addressed the American people from the U.S. House, where he had been invited to speak.
President Trump recently went on record as saying that the Ukraine is coming into a position where it can drive Russia out of all the country back to its sovereign borders, including Crimea.
Russian President Putin has gone on record as admitting that the Ukraine has been successfully striking at the heart of the Russian economy, i.e., it’s lucrative oil and natural gas energy sector.
We should never forget that Ukrainians are fighting for their lives and their freedom. The Russians are fighting for plunder and a lost sense of Empire.
Ray W. says
This from a The New Voice of Ukraine story, so make of it what you will.
According to the reporter, Russian sources had been telling “the U.S. side” that Russia will have captured the Donbas region by September. More recently, the Russian story has been changed to the capture occurring by November.
Meanwhile, a Ukrainian counter-offensive in the Dobropillia region of the Donbas has recaptured a total of 330 square kilometers of land recently captured by the Russians.
Make of this what you will.
Me?
I take the story with a grain of salt.
But it can’t be argued that in February of 2024, Russian forces did not capture a village just to the east of Pokrovsk. That actually happened.
At the time, the Russians announced that Pokrovsk was their next objective, though the attack didn’t commence for a few months because April and May are also muddy months. Pokrovsk is a rail and highway hub, so it is strategically important. It is now 18 months since the Russian announcement and its forces still haven’t captured Pokrovsk.
Ray W. says
More from Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov’s October 8th statement, as reported by the Kyiv Independent.
Ryabkov said:
“(Russia and the United States) have a certain edifice of relations that is cracking and collapsing. … The Americans are to blame for this. Now the cracks have reached the foundation.”
Make of this what you will.
Ray W. says
RBC Ukraine reports that earlier today, our time, Ukrainian long range weapons struck Russia’s Korobkovsky natural gas and associated petroleum gas processing plant (capacity of 450 million cubic meters of gas and 186,000 tons of light hydrocarbons per year) and the Yefimovka linear production and dispatch station (throughput capacity of 50 million tons per year), both located in Volgograd.
Fires and explosions have been reported from both plants.
Make of this what you will.
Ray W. says
Bloomberg reports that on October 3rd, some 95 Russian drones and missiles targeted electric power supplies to Ukrainian natural gas extraction facilities to the extent that 60% of the nation’s domestic supply of natural gas has been cut off.
Because Ukrainian-sourced natural gas did not meet all of the Ukraine’s needs, prior to the strikes, more natural gas will have to be imported into the country during the coming winter.
Make of this what you will.
Joe D says
New news item on CNN during the week of 10/13/25:
Putin is running out of draftees ( even as he raised the top cut off age )for his Russian invasion of Ukraine. The solution? He is recruiting men from CUBA to fight in Ukraine. The Cuban economy is so weak, and the unemployment rate is so high, that Putin is actually making offers for subscription soldiers from Cuba to fight in the trenches along the Ukrainian front.
Of course “overheard” communications last year when North Korea sent troops to fight for Russia on the Ukrainian front between Russian Commanders, was that the LANGUAGE BARRIER alone made the N Korean troops almost worthless in the fight. For Putin to be desperate enough to deploy paid Cuban civilian forces, he MUST BE DESPERATE. In addition to the language difficulties of a largely SPANISH SPEAKING troop group, given their tropical home climate, they are likely unprepared for ground combat as Ukraine transitions into the freezing Winter months.